This cycle of Community Grants: General Operating Support and Operating Renewals is closed.

The Community Grant Program is Greater Worcester Community Foundation’s signature funding opportunity, awarding close to $2 million annually across five strategic focus areas for both discrete project/programming and general operating support.

This grant application focuses on your organization as a whole and is not meant to support one program or piece of your work. General Operating Support is unrestricted grant dollars to be used at your organization’s discretion and focused on mission fulfillment.

Focus Areas

We are looking to support organizations who have a mission highly aligned with one of the following areas:

1. Arts & Creativity: Building and supporting a diverse and strong arts ecosystem.
2. Basic Needs: Working to ensure all residents of our community have food, shelter and services to achieve permanency.
3. Economic Opportunity: Supporting individuals in building skills and creating opportunities for career preparation, advancement.
4. Health & Wellbeing: Strengthening care pathways that ensure those from historically excluded populations have equitable access to healthcare.
5. Youth Development: Providing resources/experiences/leadership opportunities for youth that are often hard to access outside of school.

Criteria

We strive to be in partnership with organizations with the following:

• High mission alignment with the strategic focus areas listed above.
• Geographic alignment (based in Worcester County and at least 75% of your total service delivery footprint is within the county).
• Local presence and involvement in pressing local issues (coalitions, networks, etc.).
• Sound organizational practice in the areas of operations, governance, finance and HR.
  • Examples include:
    • A board of directors with adopted bylaws and is representative of the communities you work with
    • Audited financial statements if required
    • Engagement in equitable employer practices

Eligibility

Types of Organizations

• 501c3 nonprofits or any entity operating under a fiscal sponsorship of a 501c3.
• Collaboratives and coalitions with a fiscal sponsor and identified project lead.

Geographic Location & Service Area

• Based in Worcester County and exclusively or primarily serving Worcester County residents.

Ineligible Organizations & Individuals

• Businesses
• Government organizations or municipalities
• Houses of worship
• Individuals (scholarships, tuition, direct aid etc.)
• Projects or discrete programming of any nature
• Organizations requesting support for capital projects/campaigns

Requested Amount

We seek to make grant investments that are as transformative as possible given our financial resources and the current needs of our local nonprofit sector and community. We are aspirational in our role to correct larger historical philanthropic trends and practices that have created barriers to accessing funding for certain types of organizations. 

Please use the following guide when considering your request:

*We know in some circumstances, an operating grant of more than 20% of your budget could be transformative. If that is the case, there is space in the application for you to share more. 

**If you are applying for renewal support, please utilize the new formula to determine your request.

GWCF Support & Feedback

• Before You Submit: You may reach out to a member of our program team for coaching, conversation and/or an application review.
• Applications Under Review: Every application we receive undergoes a fair and thorough review. You will be notified each step of the way regardless of the outcome.
• Decisions: Program staff are happy to have follow up conversations. We can share themes and feedback on how your application faired through the process

Be sure to check out our tips for applicants here.

Links

• Guidelines
• Application