Bullitt Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Bullitt Foundation focuses on developing sustainability and healthy relationships between cities and their neighboring ecosystems. Its climate and energy grants support organizations that increase energy efficiency, promote clean energy, and eliminate toxic chemicals in products.
IP TAKE: Bullitt aims to promote “livable cities conducive to human wellbeing” through its grantmaking. It is sunsetting its grantmaking in 2024. Funding only centers on the Emerald Corridor from “Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, British Columbia.”
PROFILE: In 1952, Dorothy Bullitt established the Bullitt Foundation to “safeguard the natural environment by promoting responsible human activities and sustainable communities in the Pacific Northwest.” During her lifetime, Bullitt was a well-known Seattle businesswomen and philanthropist who helped to found many of the city’s prominent institutions such as Children’s Hospital, the Seattle Symphony and the Cornish School of the Arts. The foundation was endowed in 1991, and has since made more than $200 million in grants. Justice and equity remain at the center of its climate action, which includes the following programs: Regional Ecosystem Health; Energy, Climate & Materials; Deep Green Buildings; Resilient Cities, Healthy Communities; and an Environmental Fellowship.
Grants for Climate Change
While the foundation’s grantmaking benefits various aspects of climate action across its program, the foundation’s Energy, Climate & Materials program centers directly on this work by broadly supporting organizations that “work to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and transition from toxic materials to inherently safe ones.” Its main goal is to “eliminate the externalized costs that dirty energy and toxic chemicals impose on the natural environment and human health.” It works by promoting energy policy reform and renewable energy sources, with a particular focus on solar energy. It also supports efforts to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals in consumer products and funds scientific research, market incentives, and policy advocacy to promote the use of environmentally safe chemicals and materials. Grantees include 350 Seattle, BlueGreen Alliance, Climate Defense Project, Earthjustice, and Force of Nature Society.
Grants for Environmental and Marine Conservation
Many of Bullitt’s programs overlap in their focus, but the foundation pursues most of its conservation grantmaking through its Regional Ecosystem Health program, which emphasizes the “links between healthy ecosystems, open space, working lands, and vibrant human communities.” The program largely addresses issues at “the interface of the built environment and the natural world and illuminates the links between healthy ecosystems, open space, working lands, and vibrant human communities. It seeks to advance innovations in regional planning and management of land and water to improve cross-sector coordination and ensure that policy and financial decisions fully account for the value we receive from nature.” The program also seeks to restore and conserve nature as the basic infrastructure, which supports urban resilience and sustainability. The program engages applied urban research and tool development, conservation finance and environmental economics, and ecosystem defense and ecological restoration. Grantees include American Farmland Trust, Audubon Society of Portland, Columbia Land Trust, Conservation Northwest and Earthjustice Northwest.
The foundation also offers an Environmental Fellowship for graduate students who are pursuing research that aligns with Bullitt’s mission and goals and may further the foundation’s impact in the Pacific Northwest. The fellowship offers $100,000 over a two-year period to a student who wishes to “advance a project, engage in creative thinking, or spur action to address a specific environmental issue.” Applicants must be nominated by an advisor or faculty member and currently-enrolled as a graduate student in Washington State, Oregon, or British Columbia.
Grants for Cities and Community Development
The Bullitt Foundation’s programming focuses have shifted gears in recent years to primarily address urban environmental issues due to a radical population shift toward cities. The foundation’s Deep Green Buildings program aims to achieve “huge leaps—as opposed to incremental shifts—in the built environment” through projects that use “designs, materials, and technologies that are most relevant to 21st century needs and conditions.” It works by promoting an “integrated design process,” expanding the capabilities of energy efficiency, supporting strong building and zoning regulations. Grantees include Congress for a New Urbanism, Emerald Cities Seattle, International Living Future Institute, Northwest Ecobuilding Guild, and NW Energy Coalition.
The Bullitt Foundation’s Resilient Cities, Healthy Communities program works to make the Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver metro areas “equitable, resilient, healthy, and beautiful places to live.” It aims to create communities where “public transit is fast and reliable”; “urban green space is abundant and accessible to all”; “housing is green and affordable”; “infrastructure is resilient and resource efficient”; and “healthy food is available.” It is particularly interested in funding projects that promote sustainable and resilient infrastructure development, affordability and well-being in dense population areas, and food systems that meet local demand for healthy nutrition. Grantees include 1000 Friends of Oregon, Center for Sustainable Infrastructure, EcoDistricts, and Futurewise.
Important Grant Details:
Most Bullitt grants range from $25,000 to $75,000. Because of this funder’s narrow geographic focus, it often supports local and grassroots organizations. To learn more about the types of organizations Bullitt supports and at what level, explore its searchable grants history list. Note that the foundation will no longer make grants after 2024. Bullitt currently restricts its geographic focus to the Emerald Corridor, which it defines as the region bounded by Vancouver, British Columbia to the north, Portland to the south, and the Cascades to the east.
The foundation does not accept unsolicited requests for funding or grant applications. Grantseekers must submit a letter of inquiry by March 15 for the fall funding cycle and September 15 for the spring cycle. Applicants for the Environmental Fellowship may apply online.
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