Grant Guidelines and Policies

Grant Guidelines and Policies:

• Grant applications must be submitted through our application portal linked here.
• Grants will be considered for the following purposes: capacity building, program support, capital campaigns, multi-year projects, start-up support and general operating support.

• Proposals should be as brief and concise as possible.

• The Trustees will pay particular attention to the composition of an organization's governing board which should include people from diverse backgrounds, professions and occupations who are active and visible in the community served.

• The Trustees look favorably upon collaboration and synergy that may exist between small organizations operating in the same geographic area, particularly if they have common purposes and routinely share ideas, referrals, staff and facilities to gain operating efficiencies and strengthen program outcomes.

• The Trustees will frequently require an applicant organization to seek funds to match a grant from the Trust. Such challenge grants have proven to be an incentive to organizations to develop other funding sources in the community and at the same time, to raise public awareness of their programs and activities.

• Applicant organizations that neglect to submit a final report on previous programs supported by the Trust should not expect to receive a favorable response on a current request.
• Grant requests will generally not be considered if the organization has not been in continuous operation serving the community during the three years immediately preceding the application.

• The Trustees will give careful consideration to the perceived ability of the organization's management to maintain a balanced budget and to gather expanding support from the community at large.

• Assistance is not provided to individuals except to women from an occupation mentioned in the 1867 will of Thomas Thompson.* It is expected that any qualifying applicant must have been a long-term resident of the Town from which she applies and over a prolonged period shall have derived a substantial part of her income from such occupation. (* The applicable provision of the will reads in part as follows: "…for, or towards the relief and support of poor seamstresses, needlewomen and shop girls who may be in temporary need from want of employment, sickness or misfortune, in the Towns of Brattleboro, Vermont, and Rhinebeck, Dutchess County, New York…" In the parlance of that day, "shop girls" were factory workers.)