Grants

The mission of the Cleveland County Community Foundation is to inspire philanthropy and strengthen our community by supporting initiatives that address local needs and providing quality services to donors and constituents.

The Board of Trustees supports their mission through the annual competitive grantmaking program. The Foundation is an investor in the community and is interested in creating the highest possible levels of community gain, focused on improving the lives of Cleveland County citizens.

Grant dollars are available through the Cleveland County Community Foundation's endowment fund, coupled with funds available from the Hoyt Keeter fund. The Community Investment Guidelines below more clearly reflect how the board makes grant award decisions.

Community Investment Guidelines

To decide how to invest the limited dollars of the Foundation, the Board will look for effective programs and strategies that strive to support the target areas listed below. Programs that are capable of attaining results receive higher consideration. Grant requests are reviewed with the following questions in mind:

• What results are we investing in?
• What are the chances we will get results?
• Is this the best possible use of money?

Grant Program Timeline and Online Application Access
The 2013 grant cycle will be conducted through an online application process, which requires an initial step of registering on the Foundation For The Carolinas website. If you have applied online to this grant program in the past, you will use the same username and password.

If you are not already registered to apply for competitive grants online, click here to begin the registration process. Note: it can take one business day for the registration to be processed, so please check back the day after you register to make sure you can log in via Access My Account on the right column of the web page.

Registering on the Foundation For The Carolinas web site should be completed by Friday, June 14, 2013 to ensure sufficient time to gain access to and complete the application.

Grant Program Timeline:

• Completed application must be submitted by noon on Friday, June 21, 2013. The submittal time is tracked by the system and applications received after the deadline will not be reviewed.
• Notification of grant awards: late August

Online Application Access:
Click here to launch the online application. You will be directed to Foundation For The Carolinas Competitive Grant Application and will be asked to log in. Please select Cleveland County Community Foundation as the grant program to which you are applying. To preview the application questions, click here.

Please note: Once you start and save an application, you will re-enter the application from your application status page after logging in. Click here to go to the application status page.

For more information about the grants process, contact Karen Coppadge, Grants Specialist, at kcoppadge@fftc.org or 704.973.4559.

Target Areas
Priority will be given to requests for projects and programs that address the basic needs of food, shelter, clothing and utilities. The Foundation will award grants up to $2,000 to eligible organizations. However, actual award amounts will be determined based on merit of the project and available funds.

Areas Not Typically Funded:

• General operating support
• Capital requests
• Debt retirement / deficit funding or expenses incurred prior to grant award decisions
• Direct support of individuals (e.g. scholarships, hardship)
• Endowment funds
• Travel and conferences
• Publication of books
• Projects that are typically the funding responsibility of federal, state or local government
• Projects that promote political or religious views
• Political or lobbying activities
• Sponsorships or fundraisers

Duration and Tracking of Grant
Grants are one year in duration. All grant recipients are expected to provide a report evaluating the project and accounting for grant expenses. If a complete evaluation report is not received, an organization may be ineligible for a grant from this grant program in the future.

Additional Notes
The Cleveland County Community Foundation has limited discretionary fund; therefore, many exemplary proposals cannot be funded. Because of the volume of requests, we do not provide written feedback on proposals that are not funded.

To conduct a fair and ethical grants program, a conflict of interest policy is followed and requires that volunteers and/or staff not participate in the grant process for an organization with which they are affiliated. Please do not lobby board or grant committee members on behalf of your organization. If an individual or organization wishes to express support for your project’s application, please have them contact Karen Coppadge, Grants Specialist, at kcoppadge@fftc.org or 704.973.4559.