Deadline: 24-Sep-21
Applications are now open for the 2021 Park Foundation’s Grants Program.
The Park Foundation was formed in 1966. Its original focus was on education and grant-making in communities where Park Communications had interests. When he died in 1993, Mr. Park bequeathed more than 70 percent of his holdings to the Foundation.
The Foundation is dedicated to the aid and support of education, public broadcasting, environment, and other selected areas of interest to the Park family. Scholarship programs have been established in Mr. Park’s name at the two institutions with which he was so close — Ithaca College and North Carolina State University.
Program Interests
- Democracy and Civil Society: The Foundation supports efforts that promote a just, inclusive, sustainable society. It supports full participation of all races, genders, and underserved populations in the voting process. It supports removing dark money from politics.
- Media: The Foundation supports public interest media that raises awareness of critical environmental, political and social issues to promote a better informed citizenry in the U.S. It supports quality, non-commercial media that is substantive, fair, and accurate. Program priorities include investigative journalism, media policy and public broadcasting.
- Environment: The Foundation’s Environment Program has two major interests:
- To ensure drinking water is clean, affordable, and accessible, protected and managed as a public necessity; and
- To challenge continued shale gas extraction and infrastructure expansion.
- Animal Welfare: The Foundation supports nationally-significant efforts to ensure the humane treatment, care and well-being of domestic animals and the protection and conservation of endangered wildlife and wildlife in captivity in the U.S. The program supports innovative, comprehensive, solution-oriented models that lead to systemic change, reduce suffering, and foster a more compassionate society.
- Sustainable Ithaca: The vision of the Sustainable Ithaca program is that Ithaca and Tompkins County become a fully sustainable community – environmentally, socially and economically. Accordingly, grantmaking addresses a spectrum of topics with emphasis on integration of systems and cross-sectoral collaboration. A special interest is on projects that enable low-income and the community of color access to and participation in sustainability measures.
- Community Needs: The Community Needs program concentrates on opportunities for low-income residents of Tompkins County, NY. An important value of the Foundation is equity and the Foundation places a strong emphasis on equity in human service grants and efforts which lead to good outcomes for all.
- School Food and Nutrition: The vision for the School Food and Nutrition Special Project area is that all Tompkins County residents will have adequate nutritional security to support their health, growth, and well-being. In particular, the Park Foundation has set a goal of ensuring that every student in Tompkins County has access to and is choosing to eat nutritious and appealing food in school.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Foundation does not make grants to individuals, for-profit entities, endowments or for debt reduction.
- Capital grants are highly selective and generally limited to nonprofits in Tompkins County, NY. Eligible organizations must be classified under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
For more information, visit https://parkfoundation.org/applying/