PROJECT PRESENTATION
ACTIVITIES NOT SUPPORTED BY THE FOUNDATIONS
ADDRESS FOR PROPOSALS
A FINAL WORD

Project Presentation

All proposals must come from the president or other primary executive of an institution, not from development officers, department heads, individual researchers, or other personnel within the institution. Proposals should contain a statement by the applicant regarding the priority of the project and should be submitted in a letter addressed to the Executive Director of the Foundations.

An elaborate initial project presentation is unnecessary. A simple statement describing the proposed project is preferred. A budget should also be included. There are no deadlines for proposals and grant applications may be submitted at any time of the year. However, the process of moving from proposal submission to grant approval takes time. Therefore, it may not be feasible to meet requests for eligible projects which require immediate or near-term funding.

After an evaluation of the initial proposal, further detailed information may be requested. For example, under the higher education and religion programs, applicants may be asked to provide information that reflects the quality of students and faculty, measures of success, and financial stability and support. Applicants for grants under the secondary education, health care, and public television programs may be asked to supply detailed descriptions of the project being proposed. In addition, background information on the requesting organization may be sought. In all five programs, copies of audited financial statements for the past three years are normally requested, but need not be included with the initial proposal.

It is not necessary for an applicant or representative of an institution to visit personally with the staff in order to present a proposal successfully. A visit by a member of the Foundations staff to the requesting institution typically is conducted in the final stages of the grant evaluation process.

All materials submitted should be either copies of originals or other disposable forms which need not be sent back. The Foundations generally do not return data submitted in support of a proposal.

Activities Not Supported By The Foundations

Among those activities, functions and organizations not supported by the Foundations are the following:

• Institutional or program funding outside the United States and its possessions;
• Assistance to individuals, except as participants chosen by the grantee institution in an organized scholarship program;
• Publicly governed colleges and universities and other entities which are supported primarily by government funds (except in health care and secondary education programs);
• Private foundations within the meaning of Section 509(a) of the 1969 Tax Reform Act;
• Support for voter registration drives;
• Voter education;
• Efforts to influence elections;
• Efforts to influence legislation;
• Expenditures for non-charitable purposes;

ADDRESS FOR PROPOSALS:

A Final Word

Because many more deserving proposals are received each year than Foundations' resources can support, inevitably most applicants will be disappointed. Those not chosen for funding in any given year should understand that the decision does not necessarily constitute a judgment on the quality of the applicant or its programs, but rather is more often the result of funding limitations. Failure to receive a grant does not preclude future submissions of new proposals that are directly related to published program areas and are competitive on a national basis.