Seattle Foundation: Grants for Washington
/OVERVIEW: This funder supports many “healthy community framework elements,” including the environment, health and wellness, education, economy, basic needs, community building, and arts and culture. Seattle and King County are the geographic focus areas.
IP TAKE: Homelessness and mental illness are big issues for this funder. Grant seekers should try to touch on them, but overall, support from this community foundation is very broad.
PROFILE: The Seattle Foundation is the largest community foundation serving the Pacific Northwest. It seeks to strengthen “the health and vitality of our community by connecting generous people with well-informed philanthropic strategies.” It was established in 1946. This community foundation has at least 1,200 community philanthropists working with it and has invested around $1 billion over the past 70 years.
The foundation’s grantmaking program supports a variety of funds, including unrestricted funds, area of interest funds, and donor partnerships. The foundation mostly invests in intermediary organizations that serve the nonprofit sector in broad ways. But occasionally, it gives support to organizational capacity building needs. Most of the donor-advised funds do not accept requests from nonprofits, but the Seattle Foundation serves as a matchmaker.
Some of the area of interest funds administered through the Seattle Foundation include the Chris Hooyman Outdoor Education Fund, the Creative Advantage Fund, the Literacy Fund, and the Microsoft DisAbility Scholarship Fund. The Seattle Foundation also houses the COVID-19 Response Fund. Learn more about these and other funds here. Overall, topics of interest include access to the arts, youth and the outdoors, women and girls, homelessness, and mental health. More about the Seattle Foundation’s interests can be found on the Community Impact page.
A program called Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N) addresses leadership, equity and equal opportunity. N2N funds grassroots efforts to boost engagement and influence of community members faced with poverty and racial disparities. This program also accepts grant applications. The foundation gives most of its support to King County nonprofits. On the Other Nonprofit Grant Opportunities page, find information on groups including the Birkenfeld Memorial Trust Fund at Seattle Foundation, The Whitehorse Foundation, and the Benjamin N. Phillips Memorial Fund, which offer grant opportunities at select times.
At the end of a recent year, the foundation had over $784 million in total assets. View current annual reports here.
Direct general questions to the staff at 206-622-2294 or via email at info@seattlefoundation.org. To receive email notifications about upcoming nonprofit events, email grantmaking@seattlefoundation.org. The foundation’s blog has a section with nonprofit partner posts, where you can also keep up with new grant opportunities.
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
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