What South Carolina Grantseekers Should Know About the Joanna Foundation
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Photo: Jon Bilous/shutterstock
The Lowcountry of South Carolina lies along the southeastern coastal region of the state, an area with its own unique style of architecture, culture and cuisine. The Community Foundation of the Lowcountry is one grantmaker serving the region that we have covered in the past. However, additional foundations like the Joanna Foundation prioritize this region as well.
Here are the top things grantseekers should know about the Joanna Foundation and its Lowcountry giving.
A focus on specific cities and counties
The Joanna Foundation places a specific focus on the counties of Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester, as well as the communities of Joanna and Newberry in South Carolina.
This group of places is a geographic expansion of the foundation’s original focus on Joanna, South Carolina, home of the Joanna Cotton Mills Company. The company’s president and the president of the parent company created the foundation with broad charitable intentions in 1945. The Joanna Foundation is based in Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina.
An open LOI process
The Joanna Foundation is an accessible grantmaker with a straightforward letter of inquiry process. There are three funding cycles per year with LOIs due on the 15th of January, May and September. The foundation invites only a limited number of applicants to submit full proposals, so it is a requirement to submit a LOI before sending in a full application.
Organizations should download the LOI form from the funder’s website and email it to the foundation during an open submission period. But before doing that, it is important to complete a required online eligibility survey.
Offers many kinds of support
The Joanna Foundation is open to offering many different types of support, including general operating support, capital campaign support, special project funding, seed money and matching funds. However, it does not typically provide grants for research projects, individuals, conferences, fundraising events or debt reduction. This is also not a foundation to approach with consecutive year requests or multi-year commitment requests. Overall, the foundation likes to see proposals that highlight existing support from other grantmakers.
Most grants are a couple thousand dollars
Although there is no specific monetary limit on how much a nonprofit can request from the Joanna Foundation, grantseekers should know that most grants are between $1,000 and $3,000. It is rare for grants to extend into the $5,000 to $10,000 range, but not impossible. Lately, a large number of grants have been going to human services organizations, such as East Cooper Meals on Wheels and the Trident Literacy Association.
The arts and humanities are also a major interest for this funder, with recent grants going to the Gibbes Museum of Art and Charleston Jazz. Other foundation interests are education, the environment, health and public benefit/social improvement.
Additional information can be found in IP’s full profile of the Joanna Foundation, located in in our comprehensive Southeast funding guide.
