Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors

Program Purpose & Background

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation (Kellogg) has created a partnership with the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) to launch and manage a limited pilot grant program entitled Cultures of Giving: Innovation & Impact. This pilot extends the ten years of exploration and support Kellogg has devoted to strengthening philanthropy in communities of color and furthers the Foundation’s vision to unleash new philanthropic resources for social change. Since 2005 alone, Kellogg has committed nearly $10 million in this endeavor, of which $2.5 million is earmarked for this pilot grant program.

The purpose of Cultures of Giving: Innovation & Impact grants is to empower emerging donor communities to lead, develop and grow philanthropic resources that address community causes.

Cultures of Giving: Innovation & Impact honors the traditions of giving among emerging donor communities and recognizes that community members are uniquely equipped to identify community priorities and needs. Although mainstream philanthropy and public funds should continue to share responsibility for addressing these needs, some communities of color are now in a position to offer a potentially powerful and empowering resource. Innovation & Impact grants are designed to strengthen the ability of emerging donor communities to focus and direct this philanthropy on behalf of community causes and to give civic voice to those for whom these donors are uniquely positioned to represent and to lead.

Participating nonprofits include culturally specific or multicultural social change funds, community-based organizations and community foundations that share the goal of increasing and strengthening community philanthropy to address community needs. Grants will be awarded to those who have demonstrated success or promising practices for engaging donors in African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American or any of several other recent immigrant communities to address community causes and needs.

Program Overview

The goal of Innovation & Impact is to develop and strengthen community-led social change funds that attract, retain and empower members of emerging donor communities to support vital needs in their respective communities. For this program social change funds are defined as those addressing community causes that improve conditions, increase access, mitigate inequities or empower communities. Emerging donor communities may include the many within African American, Latino, Asian American, Native American or several immigrant communities that are connecting community assets with community needs.

In addition to grants, Cultures of Giving participating organizations will also share best practices for engaging community donors and developing philanthropic leadership by networking across cultures in formal conferences convened by Kellogg. This collaborative learning process is designed to maximize the limited funds available for capacity building and professional development.

There are two separate funding categories for Innovation & Impact grants:

Challenge Grants are primarily for culturally-specific or multicultural social change funds and are designed to stimulate and increase the impact of giving from community donors, and to connect them with community needs.
Tools & Capacity Grants are primarily for service organizations and philanthropic programs that provide tools, training or coaching for community-based organizations to strengthen their ability to engage community donors and support their leadership roles.

Detailed descriptions and requirements for both of these funding categories are included later in these program guidelines. Applicants may only apply under one funding category.

Eligible Organizations & Application Process

Innovation & Impact is an invitational grant program.
Only organizations funded under Kellogg’s Cultures of Giving: Expanding the Boundaries – both lead grantees and their formal collaborating partners – are eligible to apply. There is a two-step application process:

1. Submission and review of Initial Intent Application forms, followed by
2. Formal invitations to submit Full Proposal forms.

RPA will invite all lead grantees and formal collaborating partners of the Kellogg Foundation’s current 30 Expanding the Boundaries grants to submit an Initial Intent Application Form. RPA, in consultation with the Kellogg Foundation, will review critical information about the applicant’s past history with this work, relevance of proposed project to the purpose of the Innovation & Impact strategy, and progress with the current Expanding the Boundaries grant. This review will determine which organizations will be invited to submit a Full Proposal. The Full Proposal form will then request detailed information about the proposed project design and implementation, the potential for community and field impact, and the roles of community leaders and donors who may be involved with the proposed project.

All Initial Intent Application forms will be required to be submitted online no later than March 30th, 2007. There will be only one deadline for Initial Intent Application forms, but at least two deadlines for Full Proposals and at least two cycles of grants awarded in 2007. Formal invitations will be sent out that will specify deadlines and funding periods for those invited to submit Full Proposals. Invitation cycles will take into account progress on current grant-funded projects and projected end dates.

Invited applicants may apply individually or as collaborations, but the collaborations need not be identical to those of the current Expanding the Boundaries grant.

Funding Categories: Purpose & Requirements

As noted above, there are two categories of grants being awarded under the Cultures of Giving: Innovation and Impact program. Applicants may only apply under one category per cycle. Purposes, fundable activities, and project parameters for each category are as follows:

Challenge Grants

The major focus of Cultures of Giving: Innovation & Impact Challenge Grants is to empower community donors by challenging them to raise funds on behalf of community causes and to lead their respective communities through charitable giving, volunteering and civic engagement.

An underlying assumption of Challenge Grants is that the competitive applicant already has some experience and success with engaging community donors and with running grantmaking programs that support community causes and organizations. Another underlying assumption is that community donors who are civically engaged and knowledgeable about community causes will be the most successful at inviting and attracting other community donors.

Challenge Grant requests may range from $25,000 to $500,000 for periods of one to two years. Most grants, however, will range from $50,000 to $150,000.

Challenge Grants will be structured in the following manner and may include support for implementation in addition to community grantmaking:

Matching ratios for social change funds may be on a one-to-one or one-to-two basis (COG grant to community donor gifts), to be raised individually or collectively from emerging donor communities. The donor communities to be targeted are to be defined and proposed by the applicant.
Implementation support may be requested. Although the majority of support from Challenge Grants must be used toward community grantmaking, $25,000 or 25% of the total Challenge Grant awarded (whichever is the greater) may cover personnel and other direct costs necessary for implementing community fundraising, donor engagement and/or community grantmaking. Implementation support will be disbursed by RPA prior to project operating expenses being incurred.
Community grantmaking support may be used to bring an existing social change fund to scale or to establish a new one. RPA will disburse community grantmaking support on a regular schedule throughout the entire funding period as the grantee raises monies toward the proposed match and as fundraising reports are submitted and approved.
Community grantmaking may be initiated by the grantee organization at timed intervals based on fundraising benchmarks proposed by the grantee and approved by RPA. The proposed benchmarks should be sensitive to the desire of community donors to put their donations to community uses as soon as possible, but also strategic with regard to making a visible impact.
The structures of the social change funds may be field-of-interest funds, donor circles, collections of individual donor-advised funds, independent grantmaking programs or other innovative adaptations of mainstream philanthropic vehicles or culturally-specific giving mechanisms.
Collaboration and cross-cultural work are encouraged when appropriate, but are not required.
Definition of social change for the purpose of these community donor funds includes causes and programs that:

Improve community conditions,
Increase community access to resources and services,
Mitigate inequities, and/or
Empower communities so members may fully participate in and share the benefits and leadership of civic life in the U.S.

Therefore, among many program areas, community grantmaking may support services and projects that promote economic or educational opportunities; access to natural resources such as potable water and clean air; basic community services such as healthcare or legal aid; cultural heritage; civic participation and voter registration; public information about basic rights including immigrant rights; etc. The name of the fund should be culturally and socially acceptable to the community donors and community beneficiaries. The term “social change” does not need to be in the name of the fund.

If invited to submit a subsequent Full Proposal Form, applicants will be required to offer details on the campaign to develop the social change fund, the program focus of the fund itself, how community grants will be selected, and how community donors will be engaged and encouraged to increase their leadership and civic participation.

Recipients of Challenge Grants are required to participate in Kellogg Foundation sponsored conferences on Cultures of Giving. Expenses for participation will be covered by the Kellogg Foundation.

Tools & Capacity Grants

The purpose of Tools & Capacity Grants is to support Cultures of Giving grantees that are positioned to train, support or coach community-based organizations to take on major community donor engagement and/or challenge campaigns. Applicant organizations may be community-based or mainstream organizations, but competitive applicants will most likely have had experience providing training, coaching, tools or other educational programs to community-based organizations and/or to community donors and philanthropists.

The underlying assumption of these grants is that there are several community and mainstream organizations that have been supported in recent years through the Kellogg Foundation as well as other foundations to research relevant issues in philanthropy, social change funds and community causes, and for this reason there is a collective body of information now available on:

Community causes;
Charitable interests and practices of emerging donor communities;
Fundraising techniques that are effective with emerging donor communities, including culturally specific tools; and
Donor engagement and educational programs, protocols and presentations that have been effective

Tools & Capacity Grants will offer organizations an opportunity to codify and disseminate these programs to community-based organizations, especially those planning major campaigns to develop social change funds and/or develop major volunteer programs for community donors. Applicants with existing or draft curriculum and protocols will be given preference.

Tools & Capacity Grant requests may range from $25,000 to $100,000 for periods of one to two years. Most grants will range from $25,000 to $75,000 and may support organizations to undertake the following activities:

Formalize and codify educational or training programs into standardized curricular materials and programs;
Adapt mainstream fundraising techniques to the needs of community-based organizations;
Adapt culturally sensitive donor engagement techniques into standard fundraising techniques; and/or
Disseminate the capacity-building tools, training or coaching to community-based organizations seeking help with developing social change funds or major donor engagement programs.

Recipients of Tools & Capacity Grants are required to participate in Kellogg Foundation sponsored conferences on Cultures of Giving, and upon invitation, to offer curriculum and training at these meetings. In addition to providing a forum to share tools and learning, it is the intent of the Kellogg Foundation that the scope and nature of these conferences will enhance opportunities for sharing lessons learned across race and culture. Expenses for participation will be covered by the Foundation.

Allowable and Unallowable Costs

Allowable expenses may include but are not limited to:

Project-related staff salaries and benefits
Consultant fees
Contracted professional services
Fundraising or development costs for proposed social change funds
Funds for community grantmaking (for Challenge Grants only)
Limited funds for equipment or software and training needed to support donor research and gift tracking
Facility rental (for workshops, donor engagement activities, etc.)
Marketing and promotional expenses for donor funds and donor engagement activities
Outreach activities
Travel/per diems for speakers, special guests, training, consultants, etc.
Limited expenses for refreshments and event expenses
Services to make activities culturally competent or accessible for people with language barriers or disabilities.

Cultures of Giving: Innovation & Impact grants will not support the following, and RPA may impose other restrictions after review of all applications:

Any expenses already covered by Kellogg Foundation support or other grants;
Expenses for activities that have already occurred (i.e., retroactive funding);
Start-up costs for new organizations;
Major capital costs, such as construction or renovation of facilities;
General institutional support such as general operating funds or working capital reserves;
Elimination or reduction of existing deficits, loans, or debts;
Projects sponsored by colleges or universities that are designed primarily to serve students in degree-granting programs or their respective alumni groups;
Direct fundraising expenses for ongoing operations, programs or services.

Review & Selection Process

Initial Intent Application forms will be evaluated by RPA in consultation with the Kellogg Foundation to ascertain the following:

Potential to further the purpose of Cultures of Giving: Innovation & Impact to increase and strengthen community philanthropy;
Relevant past experience;
Progress with participation in existing Kellogg Expanding the Boundaries grant; and
Timing of current support and potential impact of future work in this area.

Within a month of submitting an Initial Intent Application form, applicant organizations can expect to receive either a formal invitation to submit a Full Proposal, a deferral of decision until later in the year or a declination. Invitations to submit a Full Proposal will include detailed instructions and deadlines.

Full Proposals will be evaluated by RPA for completeness, institutional capacity, fiscal stability and the degree to which they meet the review criteria (see Review Criteria below). Then an Advisory Review Committee consisting of Kellogg Foundation program staff and RPA program professionals will review and compare applications against the review criteria. The Committee will make grant recommendations to RPA, which has the responsibility and authority to approve grants.

Review Criteria: How Full Proposals Will Be Assessed

RPA and the Advisory Review Committee will utilize the following criteria to analyze, compare and recommend grant awards. All applicants are encouraged to address the following review criteria as they develop their applications:

Potential of the proposed project to fulfill the purpose of Cultures of Giving: Innovation & Impact;
Soundness of project design and feasibility of implementation plans;
High relevance of proposed activities to applicant organization’s mission and history of promoting philanthropy in emerging donor communities;
Potential community commitment in terms of numbers and roles of community donors and other community participants involved in the development of the proposed project;
Potential field impact in terms of innovation in donor engagement strategies and methods for increasing donor involvement;
Appropriateness and sensitivity of the proposed project with respect to the donors and communities to be targeted and served;
Strength of managerial and fiscal operations, including the applicant’s ability to carry out the proposed activities; and
For collaborations, the extent to which partners extend the reach and impact of the project in terms of quantity and diversity of participants and knowledge and skills, as well as their demonstrated commitment to the success of the shared project.

Applicants for Challenge Grants must address the following additional review criteria:

Past success with engaging donors and raising funds from relevant donor communities;
Past experience with community grantmaking such as running a donor circle, community re-granting program, field-of-interest fund, etc;
Readiness for major fund growth as evidenced by existence of appropriate staff, consultants, board members and other volunteers, and/or campaign plans;
Potential community impact as indicated by the proposed cause(s) that the social change fund will address and the fund’s ultimate size (dollars and donors) relative to community needs and capacity; and
Potential donor community impact as projected in terms of the non-monetary contributions, their ongoing commitment in growing philanthropic resources, and the leadership roles planned for the donors.

Applicants for Tools & Capacity Grants must address the following additional review criteria:

Past experience with providing tools or services to community donors or community-based organizations to enhance their capacity to engage donors, raise funds from individuals or implement grantmaking programs;
The quality of existing training programs or programs in development that help community-based organizations engage or raise funds from donors of color or facilitate grantmaking programs, or that coach donors on community issues, philanthropy or fundraising;
The extent to which the tools or services funded will help other organizations and participants in Cultures of Giving take on Challenge Grants or other major initiatives to build social change funds in their communities; and
Potential demand from community donors and/or community-based organizations for the tools and services.