Grants for Christian Nonprofits

Lilly Endowment receives a few thousand grant requests each year, but we can fund only a small percentage of many worthwhile proposals. These guidelines, formulated over the years by our founders and the Endowment's Board of Directors, govern our grantmaking decisions.

Our Work: Religion

Our primary aim in religion is to deepen and enrich the religious lives of American Christians, principally by supporting efforts that enhance the vitality of congregations. We seek to ensure that congregations have a steady stream of wise, faithful and well-prepared leaders. We also support efforts that help Christians draw on the wisdom of their theological traditions as they strive to understand and respond to contemporary challenges and live their faith more fully. In addition, we work to foster public understanding about religion and help lift up in fair and accurate ways the contributions that people of diverse religious faiths make to our greater civic well-being.

Strengthening Pastoral Leadership

We believe that the long-term vitality of congregations depends on excellent pastoral leadership, and our grants seek to ensure that congregations have a steady stream of wise, faithful and well-prepared leaders. By drawing upon research and insights from conversations with thoughtful religious leaders, we strive to support efforts that present promising responses to challenges facing pastoral leadership and Christian congregations. We pay particular attention to key moments along the arc of a pastor’s ministerial career – from a young person’s wrestling with a call to ministry to an experienced pastor’s seeking to sustain excellence.

Deepening Christian Life

We seek to help American Christians live their faith fully and well through grants that support the exploration of compelling questions facing Christian congregations. How can Christians draw more fully on the wisdom of scriptural and theological traditions to understand and respond to contemporary challenges? How can Christian faith be nurtured throughout life and passed to new generations? How are pastors, theologians and others responding to the influence of rapid cultural change on all aspects of life, including faith?

Enhancing Congregational Vitality

We believe that vibrant congregations enrich the lives of their members and those they serve through mission outreach in their communities and throughout the world. We, therefore, support efforts to enhance the vitality of congregations and address the most pressing challenges facing them. In so doing, we focus on questions such as the following:

What makes Christian congregations vibrant, effective communities of faith? How can congregations be renewed and strengthened in the face of contemporary social change? How can congregational leadership become stronger and more sustainable? How can practices for promoting congregational vitality be shared among diverse congregations?

Strengthening Religious Institutions and Networks

We believe that institutions beyond local congregations are essential to their vitality and the success of their ministries. These institutions and the networks to which they belong are addressing important issues facing Christianity.

How can theological schools, colleges and universities and judicatories help strengthen pastors and prepare a new generation of Christian leaders? How can these organizations collaborate more effectively with each other and with congregations to enhance and sustain the mission of Christian churches and parishes? How can various Christian institutions address the economic challenges facing seminarians, pastors and congregations?

Improving the Public Understanding of Religion

Religion plays a critical role in shaping American life. Through grants on an invitational basis to major cultural institutions and nonprofit news and media organizations around the country, we seek to foster public understanding about religion and lift up in fair and accurate ways the contributions that people of all faiths and diverse religious communities make to our greater civic well-being.

What We Fund

Our religion grantmaking aims to deepen and enrich the religious lives of American Christians, principally by supporting efforts that enrich the vitality of congregations. We believe that the long-term health of congregations depends on excellent pastoral leadership, and our grants seek to ensure that congregations have a steady stream of wise, faithful and well-prepared leaders. We also support efforts that help Christians draw on the wisdom of their theological traditions as they strive to understand and respond to contemporary challenges and live out their faith more fully. Much of this work centers on the theological concept of vocation and focuses on helping Christians, especially youth and young adults, discover how God calls them to lead lives of meaning and purpose.

In addition, we believe that religion plays a critical role in shaping American life. Through grants to major cultural institutions and 501(c) (3) news and media organizations, we seek to foster public understanding about religion and lift up in fair and accurate ways the contributions that people of all faiths and diverse religious communities make to our greater civic well-being.Our grantmaking in religion is national in scope

Our Mission

The Taylor Foundation is a private, family foundation that was established in 2012. The foundation focuses its giving on; commitment to the Christian Faith, the preservation of family values, the support of children, senior citizen care programs, quality healthcare, the value of education and the blessings of our American Heritage.

What We Value

Nonprofits in Our Community. We look for inspirational organizations that embody the values and beliefs at the core of the Taylor family. We encourage and support collaboration among our grantees to maximize resources in sustaining programs and achieving outcomes. We believe nonprofits play an exceptional and vital role in our communities around America. The sector enriches community life, offers people a way to participate, stands up for underrepresented people, provides needed services, and pioneers solutions to social and economic problems. The goal of the Taylor Family Foundation is to help nonprofits build a strong collective voice, and impact in their communities.

Program Goals

The Taylor Family Foundation focuses its’ giving on youth, senior citizens, family values, and programs that strengthen community through collaboration and/or development of nonprofit leadership.

The Foundation considers grants for early-stage ideas. Organizations that can leverage the Foundation’s support with funding from additional sources are looked upon favorably. The Foundation does not fund individuals. The Taylor Family Foundation has outlined program area goals to guide its giving.

The Taylor Family Foundation supports 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations in the priority areas of:

• The condition of women and children in society, particularly those living in poverty. The Foundation seeks to foster a supportive environment for all families to ensure children’s healthy development.
• Vital non-profit sector by supporting re-granting through community funds committed to social change; and by supporting intermediary organizations that enhance the management capacity of non-profit organizations.
• Demonstrate strong community ties and operate at the community level.
• Promote positive change through both the projects and their implementation process.

KOLIBRI’S VALUES & COMMITMENT

The Kolibri Foundation seeks to resource and amplify movements at the intersections of gender, racial and economic justice that center on healing and the ending of systemic and interpersonal violence. Kolibri seeks an end to all forms of violence including state violence, patriarchal violence, and economic violence. The Kolibri Foundation envisions a world where wealth, land, and power are equitably shared, and all communities have access to safety and justice. We believe we have a responsibility to help build a world where there are generational legacies of resilience, love, and wellbeing, not one that reinforces generational cycles of violence. We commit to living our values by investing in community-led solutions that amplify and honor the leadership and vision of those directly affected.

THE MOMENT

Over the course of the last decade, there has been an increased culture of violence and harm in the United States that stems from the legacy of chattel slavery and capitalism in this country particularly aimed at marginalized communities. Over the last 30 years, conservative Evangelical Christians have slowly used legislative and other strategies to defund and delegitimize the Gender Justice Movement and efforts to address the growing issue of state-sanctioned violence. The recent confirmations to the Supreme Court reveal a more concrete intent to continue the history of state-sanctioned violence and heteronormative patriarchy through legislative advocacy - further highlighting the crisis of this moment. The foundation sees an opportunity to fund often underfunded and under-supported organizations that are working to shift the future of patriarchal and interpersonal violence within this country. Kolibri looks to build safer communities for future generations by funding groups that are applying a gender justice lens in their strategies to ending all forms of violence with a particular focus on sexual violence. Kolibri funds community-centered and created solutions that center on BIPOC and otherwise marginalized communities. The Foundation is committed to supporting the leadership and wisdom of those pushed off into the margins of our society. The Foundation is committed to funding efforts that name the ills of racial capitalism and are strategizing to have the ability to confront it.

INAUGURAL 2022 FUNDING CYCLE

For our Summer 2022 cycle, we seek to address the short and long-term approaches to responding to and addressing patriarchal and interpersonal violence through funding organizations that are working to transform the root causes of systems and cultures of violence that perpetuate interpersonal, communal, and state harm and abuse. We are looking to fund organizations that are building infrastructure to support safety and care practices for vulnerable communities for a lifetime - inclusive of but not limited to violence perpetuated through the restriction and denial of abortion care and gender-affirming care. We recognize that movements need continuous general operating support funding and access to learning communities in order to develop and sustain the movement infrastructure necessary to shift systematic oppressive systems. In this round of grantmaking, we will invest over $3 million dollars of general operating support grants to support BIPOC-led and centering organizations that are working to address the root causes and impacts of structural state and interpersonal violence. Kolibri Foundation is accepting requests for general operating support from groups working across the US, with a particular focus on groups working in the U.S. South and Midwest. Organizations are invited to apply for up to $250,000 per year for up to two years.

We’re interested in work that involves gender justice, abolition, and reproductive justice frameworks. Rather than impose our own ideas of how these lenses can be applied to organizing strategies, we are intentionally not defining how we’re thinking about this in the RFP. Instead we want to learn from our partners about how this work is manifesting in your organization, community, and field. The Criteria and Parameters for the funding is:

• Organizations that are working to address the structural and systemic impacts of patriarchal, state-based, and interpersonal violence.
• Be an organized group of people or an organization that is a nonprofit with 501(c)3 status as determined by the IRS, OR is fiscally sponsored by 501(c)3.Organizations that are working explicitly with communities of color and/or other marginalized communities.
• Organizations with directly impacted people in meaningful and/or executive leadership throughout the organization.
• Organizations doing bold, innovative, sustaining, and/or envelope-pushing grassroots community organizing work that has the potential to have broad and deep impacts across movements.

Special Interest and Priorities

Kolibri is committed to using our resources to mobilize philanthropy to engage with communities differently and support non-traditional leaders to build long term sustained infrastructure. Kolibri is committed to funding organizations that have never been or are underfunded. We are excited about the possibility of funding organizations who are working outside of the measurements traditional funders use and in political projects that are working outside and beyond the state. Kolibri is particularly interested in supporting, but not limited to:

• Organizations working in the following states: AL, AR, KS, KY, LA, MS, ND, OK, PR, SC, SD, WV, USVI
• Organizations utilizing survivor-led and use survivor-centering strategies and have survivors in their leadership
• Organizations with a focus on elevating, uplifting, and organizing queer, gender non-conforming, trans and intersex communities, Indigenous communities, working-class communities, and groups with and for multi-abled communities..
• Organizations that are critiquing the medical industrial complex, carceral state.

Mission & Values

Mission: To improve the quality of life in Elkhart County by inspiring generosity.

Values: The Community Foundation is committed to the following as essential to our effectiveness. We aspire to reflect the following values as we serve the community:

• Integrity: An abiding pledge to honesty, professionalism, humility, and respect.
• Inclusion: We seek and elevate diverse voices. We are most impactful when our organization and deliberations include people from varied backgrounds, opinions, and perspectives.
• Excellence: In our every endeavor.
• Collaboration: We believe in teamwork, both internally and externally. We desire to be trusted partners with community members, civic leaders, and not-for-profit organizations to provide high-impact programs and services benefitting the broadest possible constituency.

Bontrager Family Foundation

Bontrager family advisors will focus on making a measurable impact on organizations that share the same value system instilled deep into their family heritage, including Christian faith-based organizations, youth and families, the Middlebury community.

History

Even before Jayco Inc. was founded in 1968, Lloyd and Bertha Bontrager were dedicated to tithing and giving to charitable causes. Throughout Jayco’s decades of production and growth in Middlebury, the family always remained committed to tithe (a biblical practice of giving 10 percent) from its profits. The family often supported Mennonite schools, colleges, universities, church organizations as well as national, international and local charities.

The Bontrager Family Foundation allows the family to continue its tradition of giving. Family members will advise where to give gifts from the foundation and use the fund as an instrument to accomplish their charitable goals. Their culture of philanthropy will impact the success of many nonprofits serving Elkhart County.

Read their full story.

The Lawrence Foundation is a private family foundation focused on making grants to support environmental, human services and other causes.

The Lawrence Foundation was established in mid-2000. We make both program and operating grants and do not have any geographical restrictions on our grants. Nonprofit organizations that qualify for public charity status under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code or other similar organizations are eligible for grants from The Lawrence Foundation.  

Grant Amount and Types

Grants typically range between $5,000 - $10,000. In some limited cases we may make larger grants, but that is typically after we have gotten to know your organization over a period of time. We also generally don’t make multi-year grants, although we may fund the same organization on a year by year basis over a period of years.

General operating or program/project grant requests within our areas of interests are accepted.

Since 1986, The Trust for the Meditation Process has encouraged the practice of inner, silent awareness, whether it's called meditation, mindfulness or contemplative prayer. Our financial grants to non-profit organizations renew contemplative Christianity, promote health and wholeness, and bring silence and stillness to a hectic world.  

Contemplative Christianity Grants

Many people think of meditation as an exclusively Eastern religious practice. But Western religion, too, has a long tradition of silent, non-discursive prayer, often called contemplation, which is rooted in a rich mystical literature. Contemporary thinkers are unearthing this tradition. Their fresh encounter with the Gospels and mystics emphasizes that God is a living presence in us – to be known in silence and love and manifested in our acts of compassion.

• Grants made in the Contemplative Christianity Program have these objectives:  
• Introduce or expand the teaching and practice of Christian contemplative practices, such as Christian Meditation or Centering Prayer.
• Focus on silent, non discursive meditation rather than another aspect or method of prayer or spiritual formation.
• Connect with a Christian audience or have a Christian context.
• Identify and support emerging scholars and leaders in Contemplative Christianity and Christian mysticism.
• Raise the profile of Contemplative Christianity, with language and programs that speak to all Christian denominations and that reconnect people to Christian contemplative traditions.
• Reach underserved populations, such as children, teens, and young adults, people of color, people who are LGBTQ, people with low incomes and people facing addictions, illness, trauma or loss.
• Encourage dialogue among contemplative traditions in all religions.

Mindfulness Grants

Thirty years ago, Jon Kabat-Zinn and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts medical school adapted classic forms of meditation found in most religions for a modern, secular audience. A simple practice of paying silent attention to the present moment formed the core of their efforts to help people improve physical and emotional health. 

Since then, a large and rigorous body of research has shown that a regular practice of mindfulness meditation can change us in many significant ways: improving immune function, reducing stress, reducing pain and symptoms of chronic disease, improving sleep, improving attention, fostering self- care and compassion, and the list continues to grow. Today, an ever widening interest in the benefits of mindfulness practice has led to its introduction in many fields and professions.  

Grants made in the Mindfulness Program have both of these objectives:

Introduce or expand mindfulness meditation through educational or human service nonprofits or government entities, such as K-12 public schools, colleges and universities, correctional facilities, rehabilitation programs, healthcare, counseling and case management services.

Reach underserved populations, such as children, teens, and young adults, BIPOC and LGBTQ communities, people in the criminal justice system, people with low incomes, and people facing addictions, illness, trauma or loss.

Mindfulness Program grants are highly competitive and we generally receive more applications than we can award. 

Grant Guidelines

Our focus is short-term projects where a small grant can make a credible impact and result in clearly identifiable outcomes. We make 20 to 40 grants annually. Initial awards are typically small – $3,000 to $5,000.

The type of projects we fund includes:

• Meditation courses, workshops, lectures or retreats.
• Trainings, sabbaticals, retreats and other development for meditation teachers.
• Meditation curriculum development.
• Books, supplies and equipment for meditation programs.
• Efforts to expand and build the capacity of meditation programs and address barriers to practice. 
• Meditation research, especially the development of simple, effective, accessible evaluation tools.
• Publications that effectively spread critical perspectives on meditation and meet an important gap in the current literature.
• East/West meditation dialogue.