Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation
/OVERVIEW: The Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation is the philanthropic vehicle of GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons and his wife, Renee, who support human services, education, opportunity, health, and mental health in Arizona and beyond.
IP TAKE: The Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation is a responsive funder that works to provide “critical funding at critical times.” It recently articulated a commitment to invest in mental health services and advocacy, for instance, and has been funding organizations working with the homeless in Arizona since its earliest years. Another specific interest for this funder is organizations supporting veterans; as Bob Parsons is a Marine Corps veteran himself, the foundation tends to prioritize programs serving Marine veterans. While the foundation’s biggest grants by a wide margin go to the same long-term grant partners, not all of them based in Arizona, there is still plenty to go around for first time grantseekers, with open-application grants still ranging into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Parsons Foundation is a transparent funder that maintains a list of past grantees dating back to 2012 (the year of its founding) that includes grant values and the names initiatives or programs funded with the grant. It is also accessible, in that it accepts applications throughout the year. The process is rather standard, consisting of an eligibility quiz, letter of inquiry, and invitation to submit a full proposal. Not much information is publicly available about how the process plays out in practice, but it appears to be an accessible and approachable funder that encourages nonprofits to reach out and inquire about how to optimize their application.
PROFILE: Established in 2012, the Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation is the foundation of GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons and his wife, Renee. The couple signed the Giving Pledge in 2013. Parsons grew up "poor as a church mouse" in inner-city Baltimore. He struggled in school but credits his service in the Marine Corps in Vietnam with turning his life around. He later started Parsons Technology, which was sold to Intuit for $64 million. Three years later, Parsons founded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company GoDaddy, where he served as executive chairman before stepping down in the summer of 2014. The Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation seeks to “inspire hope by providing critical funding at critical times to communities striving to make a difference.” Grantmaking areas of interest are Youth and Education, Health and Home, Military and First Responders, and the American Dream, an initiative for higher education and career skills. Grantmaking focuses on the foundation’s home state of Arizona, but the Parsons Foundation also has a national and, to a lesser extent, global reach.
Grants for Public Health, Mental Health, Housing, and Community Development
The foundation’s Health and Home giving area is “dedicated to increasing access to medical care and housing for those who are in need.” Grants stemming from this program prioritize vulnerable people, particularly those who are homeless, uninsured, undocumented, or “overlooked.” In Arizona, the foundation supports the Phoenix Children’s Hospital, the HonorHealth Foundation, the Homeless Youth Connection, and Native American Connections, which provides “culturally appropriate health, affordable housing, and community development services.” Elsewhere, the foundation has given to the Icahn School of Medicine’s Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research in New York, the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, and the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, Connecticut, which received support for retreats for BIPOC mental health care professionals.
Grants for Higher Education and Work & Opportunity
The Parsons Foundation’s American Dream giving program supports “organizations that break down barriers to opportunities in which people change their lives forever.” Specific areas of focus include higher education, vocational training, and career development for marginalized groups. In Arizona, the foundation supports Arizona State University, Local First Arizona, and Jobs for Arizona’s Graduates. Outside of Arizona, the foundation has provided multi-year support to Women Moving Millions, which works “to advance women, girls, and gender expansive individuals,” and RedF, which invests in “businesses that reveal and reinforce the talent of people breaking through barriers to employment.”
Grants for Military & Veterans
Grants for veterans’ causes come from the foundation’s Military and First Responders focus area. Bob Parsons served in the U.S. Marine Corps and grants appear to prioritize organizations working with Marine veterans. The foundation provides ongoing support to the Semper Fi & America’s Fund, which supports “our nation’s critically wounded, ill, and injured service members, veterans, and military families,” and the National Museum of the U.S. Marine Corps. Another grantee, the Headstrong Project, is a national organization that offers “stigma-free, evidence-based, trauma-focused mental health treatment for our nation’s military, veterans, and their associated family members.”
Grants for Education and Youth
Parson’s giving for Youth and Education makes grants for K-12 students, supporting in- and out-of-school learning, afterschool programs, enrichment, and wellness. Grantmaking prioritizes vulnerable students, as well as students from low-income, urban, and immigrant backgrounds. In Arizona, the foundation has supported Elevate Phoenix, which provides mentoring, counseling and scholarships to at-risk urban students. Other grantees include FosterEd, Teach for America, the Boys and Girls Cubs of Greater Scottsdale and Read Better Be Better, and after-school reading program in Phoenix.
Grants for Global Development and Disaster Relief
While the Parsons Foundation does not name global development or disaster relief specifically among its focus areas, a significant number of grants have supported global and relief-focuses organizations. One of the foundation’s very first initiatives after its founding was to donate $2.5 million in relief for the Haiti after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The foundation has made several grants to Hope for Haiti, which focuses on “improving the quality of life for the Haitian people, particularly women and children” and provided emergency hurricane and earthquake response. The foundation has also supported Team Rubicon, a veterans’ organization that provides “relief to those affected by disaster or crises, no matter when or where they strike.”
IMPORTANT GRANT DETAILS:
The Bob and Renee Parsons Foundation’s grants generally range from $25,000 to $250,000, with select long-term grantees receiving $500,000 to upwards of $1 million a year. Grantseekers may review the foundation’s past grants for more information on the types of projects and organizations it supports.
Arizona-based organizations generally receive more than half of this funder’s giving. National organizations may receive funding if they have a branch of operations serving Arizona residents or are otherwise of personal importance to the Parsons.
The foundation gives to organizations of all sizes and provides multi-year funding in many cases.
The foundation accepts grant applications throughout the year. The process begins with an eligibility quiz and submission of a letter of interest. The foundation may take up to three months to respond with an invitation to apply.
To be eligible, your nonprofit must have been in operation for three years or more and have an operating budget of at least $1 million.
Submit general inquiries to the foundation’s staff at info@tbrpf.org.
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