Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation invests in education, land conservation, medical, scouts, journalism and Danbury, Connecticut. Its education program supports charter schools, advocacy for education reform, and the recruitment and training of high quality education professionals, while its conservation grants support efforts in Upstate New York, the Hudson River Valley, and throughout Connecticut.
IP TAKE: This funder does not accept unsolicited proposals, but invites potential grantees to call program officers to discuss funding opportunities. It funds a broad range of focus areas, but its grantmaking may be geographically limited.
This funder does not accept unsolicited proposals, but encourages organizations to call program officers to discuss funding opportunities. General inquiries may be made via email. To get on this funder’s radar, call them and introduce your project to see if it aligns with their vision. Also, consider networking with previous grantees to see how they landed a grant.
PROFILE: The Peter and Carmen Lucia Buck Foundation (PCLB) was established in 1999 by the late Peter Buck, a co-founder of the Subway fast-food restaurant chain, and his wife, Carmen Lucia. Based in New York City, the foundation is committed to “giving motivated people the tools they need to help themselves.” Its primary funding initiative is education and aims to improve access to high quality K-12 education. The foundation’s other initiatives—Outdoors, Medical, Journalism and the Danbury, Connecticut area—receive less funding.
Grants for K-12 Education
The foundation’s Education program names three sub-initiatives: charter schools, advocacy and “people quality,” which refers to the recruitment and preparation of high quality education professionals. The charter school initiative supports both large and small charter organizations. In the area of advocacy, the foundation partners with organizations that work toward “effective education policies and practices” and “ensuring that all schools are funded in a fair and sensible way.” Its people quality initiative funds programs that “recruit, prepare and retain high-quality school staff.”
PCLB also awards college scholarships to outstanding students who attend charters schools supported by the foundation.
Grants for Environmental Conservation
PCLB addresses conservation through a program dedicated to Outdoors, which runs sub-initiatives to support land conservation, land trusts and “camperships.” Land conservation funding supports organizations that “preserve open space and promote smarth growth in New York’s Hudson Valley region, and to a more limited extent in Connecticut.” Grants from this program have gone to both preservation, management, development and agricultural projects. The land trusts program prioritizes organizations that “manage protected land in perpetuity” and also are willing to “merge with others to form effective, enduring partnerships in Connecticut and New York.” Funding from this progra covers consulting, legal, accounting, publicity “and other costs associated with competing a merger.” Finally, the campership program supports programs that “allow more young people to attend summer residence camps and enjoy traditional camp experiences.”
Grants for Public Health
PCLB supports public and global health through several program areas. Its Danbury Area grants primarily fund groups involved with “delivery of resources and services to the elderly within the city,” especially those that address “caregiving, healthy aging, homecare, and community engagement.” It also broadly supports family welfare and community services. These grants have supported the City of Danbury Emergency Shelter, Connecticut Community Care, Danbury Hospital, Hillside Food Outreach, Salvation Army, and Western Connecticut Home Care.
PCLB’s Medical focus area funds less extensively, primarily supporting Doctors Without Borders, along with smaller groups such as Boulder County AIDS Project and Callen-Lorde Community Health Center.
Grants for Journalism
PCLB’s Journalism program supports organizations that not only conduct high-quality investigative journalism, but also offer professional training and make new investigative data-gathering and distribution tools available to journalists. PCLB recently supported Vanderbilt University’s television news archive project, ProPublica’s general operating support, and New Haven Independent’s Online Journalism Project.
Important Grant Details:
PCLB supports large and small organizations with grants that range from $12,000 to $1 million. Most grantees operate in the Northeast, particularly Connecticut and New York. Past education grantees include Success Academies, Uncommon Schools, Education Reform, Educators for Excellence and chapters of the Boy and Girl Scouts of America. A complete list of grantees is available at the foundation’s website.
The Buck Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals for funding, but invites prospective grantseekers to “contact PCLB at any time to discuss the possibility of applying for funds.” Prior to calling, grantseekers are advised to review the foundation’s giving programs. The foundation may be contacted via email or telephone at (212) 360-6173.
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