Deadline: 08-Jan-2025
The Women’s Fund of Essex County raises funds specifically to award grants to non-profit organizations focused on gender-specific programs and services for at-risk women and girls in Essex County.
Their grants are awarded annually to results-oriented organizations that have demonstrated success in positively impacting the lives of women and girls, addressing issues of systemic inequities. Their grants provide an essential infusion of funding to maximize the success and impact of the programs or services. By pooling the gifts of The Women’s Fund donors, they can increase the breadth and depth of each donor’s contribution across a broad range of issues and solutions specific to Essex County.
Focus Areas
- Funding must address racial or gender-based disparities faced by women and girls in Essex County. Funding must focus on gender-specific needs, provide solutions to problems for women and girls, and allow these unique needs to set the pace and determine the content and delivery of programs and services. The application must address at least one of the following areas to be considered eligible for funding:
- Academic Achievement Gap for Girls
- Programs/services which provide opportunities to reduce disparities in academic performance due to systemic or other barriers.
- Economic Self-Sufficiency
- Programs/services which directly encourage, train or facilitate the economic independence of women and girls. (Includes apprenticeships, basic skills training, education, financial management, workforce development etc.)
- Equity and Social Justice
- Programs/services which seek at the intersection of equity and gender to meet women and girls where they are, by providing resources that will allow them to thrive. (Examples include but are not limited to supporting access to housing, English language programming, and programs that address the root causes of racial inequity.)
- Health and Mental Health
- Programs/services which support equitable access to healthcare, nutritious food and meal preparation, promote, protect, and restore health – physical, emotional, psychological, social.
- Leadership Development
- Programs/services which provide opportunities to develop leadership skills that help to build confidence, ownership of their careers, resiliency, and advancement into new roles.
- Academic Achievement Gap for Girls
Funding Information
- All grants in the 2025 grant cycle for The Women’s Fund of Essex County will be multi-year grants of $30,000 each over 3-years.
- Grants will be awarded through a competitive grant process to Essex County non-profit organizations that address issues of systemic social inequities specific to women and girls.
- 3-year grants allow organizations to secure multi-year support for programs that address longer-term issues to improve lives for women and girls. If awarded, funded programs are eligible for consideration only every three years.
Geographical Focus
- They support non-profit organizations serving the residents of Essex County, MA.
- They prefer the organization be based in Essex County, but it is not a requirement. Either way, the grant funds must be spent within the County.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Women’s Fund is limited to non-sectarian programming for Essex County women and girls of all religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds. Programs sponsored by religious organizations are eligible if enrollment is open to all qualified women and girls and the program is free of mandatory sectarian religious instruction.
- Organizations receiving a multi-year grant as part of The Women’s Fund 2024 grant cycle are eligible to apply for funding again but only if applying for a different program.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Generally, grants will not be awarded:
- To individuals
- To agencies with pending 501(c)3 status
- For debt or deficit reduction
- For political purposes
- For sectarian or religious purposes
- For endowment or capital campaigns
- For research or feasibility studies
Application Requirements
- The application is completely electronic.
- Organizations can create and save application drafts and make changes any time prior to submission.
- They archive all submitted applications, allowing grant writers to view their grant history with the Women’s Fund at any time.
For more information, visit ECCF.