Deadline: 29-Jan-21
In its Idaho and Montana Grant Program, The Steele-Reese Foundation makes grants only to federally tax-exempt entities for work in rural Idaho and Montana communities, and in Native nations that share this geography.
The Foundation will only consider requests that benefit rural communities in Idaho, Montana, and in Native nations located within these states. The Foundation will not consider requests for work benefiting urban or suburban areas, or those more rural areas immediately adjacent, or in close proximity, to an urbanized area.
In Idaho, urban areas include the Boise-Nampa Metropolitan Statistical Area, Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Coeur d’Alene, Twin Falls, Lewiston, Post Falls, Rexburg, Moscow, and their suburbs. In Montana, urban areas include Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, Bozeman, Butte, Helena, Kalispell, and their suburbs.
The Foundation gives priority to organizations based in rural communities working in rural areas. It also considers inquiries from organizations based in urban areas for proposed work in a rural community with whom they can demonstrate an existing high level of engagement.
Program Areas
- Rural Education;
- Rural Health;
- Rural Human and Social Services;
- Rural Arts and Humanities, and
- Rural Conservation or Preservation.
The Idaho and Montana Grant Program also supports projects in each of these program areas in and around Native nations that share the geography: Projects in Indian Country.
Eligibility Criteria
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No grants are made to individuals or to entities that have not been recognized as federally tax-exempt by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation considers requests from 501(c) 3 organizations and from governmental entities or agencies such as schools, fire departments, and libraries.
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Applications from organizations operating outside of these regional or program areas are not eligible for funding consideration.
How To Apply
- They will open the LOI process on January 11, 2021. They will close it once they have received 125 LOIs, or by January 29, 2021, by 11:59 pm Mountain Time, whichever occurs first. To track the number of LOIs received to date, log on to your account and click the Apply section. In the unlikely event that they reach their limit the first week, the LOI is open, anyone who has begun an LOI online in the first week will be allowed to submit it within three days of their having reached their limit.
- The 2021 Letter of Inquiry Worksheet allows applicants to review questions prior to filling out the form online and includes full instructions and answers to frequently asked questions. You may use this worksheet as a tool to prepare your answers offline to paste into the online LOI form. You must log on to your account, complete the online LOI form, and submit it for your inquiry to be counted among the first 125 they receive. They recommend that you save your work frequently while completing an LOI on their grant portal.
- By March 1, 2021, they will respond to all organizations that submit an LOI to either invite each to complete a full application by April 1, 2021, or to inform them that they are unable to further consider their proposals this year. The number of grant funds available limits the number of applications they are able to invite and the number of them they are able to fund.
- An LOI that does not result in an invitation for a full application, or an application that does not receive funding, is in no way a reflection of the value of an organization or its work. Those organizations that receive a grant will receive funds in mid-July after promptly signing grant agreements.
- If you would like to explore the possible fit between your priorities and what they are able to consider supporting, please contact Linda Tracy, Western Director, between August and December. If you have any questions or difficulties, they encourage you to contact her well ahead of the LOI deadline.
For more information, visit https://steele-reese.org/how-to-apply/idaho-and-montana-grant-program