Ally Charitable Foundation
/OVERVIEW: Ally Financial, Inc. established its charitable foundation in 2020 with the broad goal of supporting economic mobility in the geographic areas where it maintains operations. Specific interests include affordable housing, financial literacy and work and economic opportunity.
IP TAKE: The Ally Charitable Foundation’s early grantmaking has prioritized organizations helping minority-owned small businesses recover from the COVID-19 and racial justice crises of 2020. A subsidiary of Ally Financial, Ally Bank, runs a grantmaking program for financial education, digital education, workforce readiness and affordable housing.
The Ally Charitable Foundation is not accessible and is not currently accepting applications for funding, but Ally Bank runs open application programs for its grant and sponsorship programs. Grant applications are accepted between February 1 and March 15. Early grants have prioritized geographic areas where Ally maintains operations, including Detroit, Charlotte and the Twin Cities area. However, if you’d like to be considered for an Ally Charitable grant, reach out to an Ally Bank employee and network, since employee giving is robust here.
PROFILE: Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, the Ally Charitable Foundation was established in 2020 by Ally Financial, Inc., the financial services company that was formerly known as GMAC. The foundation’s main priority is economic mobility, and early grantmaking will “champion projects that break down barriers to equity and support efforts to combat social injustice.” The foundation has named affordable housing, financial literacy and workplace preparedness as areas of grantmaking interest, but early grants have mainly gone to organizations supporting small businesses in the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul area in Minnesota and greater Little Rock, Arkansas, where Ally maintains operations. A subsidiary of Ally Financial, Ally Bank awards grants and sponsorships in the areas of education, workforce development and housing and runs a robust employee giving program that has recently supported Black Lives Matter and affiliated organizations, disaster relief and K-12 education.
Grants for Work and Economic Opportunity
The Ally Charitable Foundation’s first round of grants included a $400,000 commitment to “promoting the economic mobility of Black and Brown small business owners and micro-entrepreneurs in the Twin Cities and Little Rock, Arkansas.” In the Twin Cities area, the foundation gave to Rebuild&HealMN, which supports “immigrant, Black and Brown business owners who have been impacted due to the city’s recent civil unrest,” and the Local Initiatives Support Coalition of the Twin Cities, which makes grants to small business owners in the Little Africa neighborhood of St. Paul. In Little Rock, the foundation supported Southern Bancorp Community Partners, which provides grants to organizations and small businesses that “may be unable to meet credit or other guidelines offered by depository financial institutions.”
Grants for Housing, Homelessness and Urban Development
The Ally Charitable Foundation has named housing as a grantmaking area of interest, but detailed information about grantmaking in this area is not yet available. Ally Bank’s employee giving program has supported Habitat for Humanity’s affordable housing and building projects.
Grants for Racial Justice and Indigenous Rights
The Ally Charitable Foundation supports racial equity across all grantmaking areas. Its inaugural grants for economic mobility prioritized organizations that work with minority-owned businesses including Rebuild&HealMN and the Local Initiatives Support Coalition of the Twin Cities. The foundation has also given to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which awards scholarships to approximately 300,000 students attending historically Black colleges in the U.S. annually.
Grants for Disaster Relief and Humanitarian Aid
Ally Bank’s employee giving program has made donations in the tens of thousands to hurricane and COVID-19 relief efforts by the American Red Cross. Ally’s employees have also given thousands of volunteer hours to rescue and recovery efforts after Harvey and Irma.
Grants for K-12 Education
Ally Bank’s employee giving program names K-12 education as a main priority of its giving. In Detroit, the program donated 3,000 books to public school libraries, and in Charlotte, the program coordinated a program that provided back-to-school supplies for needy children. Ally Bank employees also regularly volunteer to teach financial literacy to high school students through the national Junior Achievement program.
Important Grant Details:
In its first year of grantmaking, the Ally Charitable Foundation made about $1.6 million in grants to 54 organizations. Early grants have emphasized financial support and banking for minority-owned small businesses. For additional information about the foundation’s work, see Ally’s recent corporate social responsibility reports.
The Ally Charitable Foundation is not currently accepting grant applications. However, Ally Bank accepts applications for its grants and sponsorships. Grants are open to U.S. organizations working in the areas of financial education, affordable housing, digital job training and workforce preparedness. The program accepts applications from February 1 through March 15 and generally responds to applicants in about 12 weeks. Sponsorships are open to a broader range of organizations but are limited geographically to organizations serving communities in Charlotte, North Carolina and Detroit, Michigan. Guidelines for both grant and sponsorship applications are available at the program’s webpage. Questions about Ally Bank’s grantmaking should be addressed to the program’s staff via email.
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