In addition to the policies and procedures announced in our grant application guidelines for each of our grants programs, from time to time Meyer Memorial Trust adopts special policies in response to issues raised by grant proposals, community needs, current events, and so forth. We collect those assorted policy statements here. We intend this to be a living document, to be updated as needed, that reflects current thinking at the Trust.
Meyer Memorial Trust often provides staff members to represent MMT at nonprofit workshops and conferences, funder panels, development events, etc. In fact, we think it is important that we leave our office and meet the organizations we serve where and when they convene as often as we can.
In the past, groups have usually issued invitations to individual staff members. Because the number of requests we receive continues to grow, and we have added a number of new staff members, we have reached the point where we need to coordinate our requests as a group.
If your organization would like a representative from MMT to talk about our foundation, grantseeking, proposal writing, and/or otherwise contribute to a collective understanding of the world according to MMT, please submit your request by email. Please include the following information in your request: date, location, time starts and ends, format, specific topics you want covered, and the number and make-up of people you expect to attend. In addition, please let us know if this event is open to the public, by invitation only, if there is a fee for attending and what the fee is.
For the past few years, MMT has bunched consideration of capital requests of $100,000 and above to twice-a-year meetings. At the March 2005 program meeting, we decided to raise the amount that tips a capital grant proposal into the twice-a-year consideration category from $100,000 to more than $200,000.
That means that capital requests for $200,000 and below will be considered within our regular monthly program grant award meeting schedule along with other proposals. Applicants that request more than $200,000 for capital projects will go through our first review stage monthly, but those that are moved into the further consideration category will be held over for final award decisions at our March and September meetings only. (Because the complete review process can take several months, naturally we need to receive applications well in advance of those meetings.)
Because we don't want our policies to overly restrict our grantmaking opportunities, MMT is willing to consider exceptions to this policy in emergency/hardship cases.
The Meyer Trust receives many requests from nonprofit organizations for technology upgrades in its Responsive Grants program. We are including this information on our website to help organizations understand how these proposals are generally viewed at the Trust.
The Trust recognizes that technology can be a very useful tool that helps nonprofit organizations do their work more effectively and efficiently and views technology as part of the cost of doing business.
In most cases, the Trust feels it can be most strategic in the technology arena in its Responsive Grants program by helping increase the capacity of intermediary organizations that assist nonprofits with technology planning and ongoing support, rather than funding individual projects at individual nonprofits. The Trust has funded several of these intermediary organizations, including Netcorps, TACS, ONE/Northwest, Free Geek, and One Economy. Therefore, the Trust does not encourage requests from individual nonprofit groups to fund the next iteration of hardware and software and/or system upgrades. The Trust expects that most requests that include funds for technology to be part of projects or programs that require technology rather than stand-alone requests for hardware and software.
The Trust expects that any proposal from a nonprofit seeking support for any technology purchases be based on a holistic technology assessment from one or more unbiased sources (so the recommendations are not written by a vendor who will profit from them).
The Trust expects that nonprofit organizations seeking its assistance with any technology purchases will take advantage of all opportunities to make the cost of technology affordable and sustainable within the organization's operating budget, including seriously considering the use of Open Source Software.
Meyer Memorial Trust encourages the use of “green" or sustainable building practices and requests that all applicants for capital projects include information about how their project includes those practices in their proposals, especially how energy saving features are expected to reduce operating costs.
There are a number of helpful "green building" resources on the web. For example, the Kresge Foundation – well known for its green building initiative (and other initiatives) – offers free booklets about Why Build Green and How Do I Build Green?
In addition, the U.S. Green Building Council website includes a lot of useful information.
