Responsive Grants are awarded in the areas of social services, health, affordable housing, community development, conservation and environment, public affairs and social benefit, arts and culture, and education. Responsive Grants are given for a wide variety of projects, expansions, organizational capacity building and capital construction projects. Budgets may include a reasonable allocation of direct associated salaries and operating costs (rent, utilities, telephone, etc.).
MMT awards capacity building grants under the Responsive Grants category. Capacity building grants are intended to help organizations strengthen boards, realize new efficiencies, increase contributed or earned income, or otherwise build capacity to advance their missions. Grants may fund such things as new fundraising or administrative staff, board development and training, technology (other than routine upgrades), or earned income ventures. Successful capacity building proposals are based on careful strategic planning, multi-year income and expense forecasts, and board and staff commitment to the projects.
Given the economic challenges nearly every organization – including MMT – is facing in 2009, Meyer Memorial Trust expects its Responsive Grants to be more modest in size and duration than may have been the case when its corpus was more robust.
There are no deadlines for online Initial Inquiries for Responsive Grants requests. Applicants who submit initial inquiries by the 15th of the month will generally be notified within 60 days whether or not they are invited to submit a full proposal. Decisions on full proposals generally take five to seven months.
