Roy & Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust
/OVERVIEW: This funder primarily supports nonprofits in Arkansas but some funding supports the Dallas, Texas, area. Funding priorities include arts, culture, humanities, education, health, and human services.
FUNDING AREAS: Arts, culture, humanities, education, health, human services
IP TAKE: This is one of quite a few foundations in the region for which Bank of America serves as trustee.
PROFILE: The Roy & Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust was established in 1981 in Arkansas. It seeks “to support and promote quality educational, cultural, human services and health care programming for all people.” Roy Sturgis was the son of an Arkansas farmer and homemaker, joined the U.S. Navy during World War I, and came back to Southern Arkansas to work in a local sawmill. He and his wife became successful in the sawmill, timber, and lumber industries and had no children. They lived in both Arkansas and Dallas, Texas, where they focused their philanthropy on education, youth, health, social services, and the arts.
Today, the trust supports and promotes quality educational, cultural, human services, and health care programming for all people. This funder awards local grants once per year, with an application deadline of March 1. Most grants here are one year, although multiyear support is occasionally granted. New grant seekers can apply for capital, project, medical research, and endowment campaign grants. General operating support and start-up program support are rarer, but not out of the question.
About 65 percent of annual grants are made within Arkansas, and the other 35 percent suport groups in Texas. For Texas, Sturgis prioritizes nonprofits in the Dallas area. Grantees who receive a Sturgis grant must wait two years before submitting a new application.
Grant seekers can download the application from their website, and the annual deadline is always March 1. Grant procedures and a PDF with online application tips are also available for download. According to Foundation Center data, this foundation has awarded at least 444 grants to 260 or more organizations and totaling over $14.9 million. One grantee was AVANCE-Dallas, a group that provides educational programs to at-risk kids, which received $10,000 for a technological infrastructure project. The trust also established fellowship, study abroad, and international fellows’ programs within the J. William Fulbright College Arts and Science at the University of Arkansas.
Sturgis relies on Bank of America to handle grant administration. Bank of America serves as a trustee, co-trustee, or agent to many private foundations without full-time staff. Browse through the list of BOA foundations to learn about others. The Sturgis Charitable Trust is currently managed by the Texas office of Bank of America Philanthropic Solutions.
The address for the Roy & Christine Sturgis Charitable Trust is 901 Main Street, 19th Floor, Dallas, Texas, 75202.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
LINKS:
