WCA Foundation
Spring Grant Round
The WCA Foundation, a Signature Fund of the Minneapolis Foundation, is pleased to announce its Spring 2022 grant round.
The WCA Foundation values its relationships with grant applicants and views them as partners in changing the lives of women. This philosophy guides the WCA Foundation’s grantmaking and the relationships it strives to develop.
Funding Focus and Eligibility
- Grants are limited to nonprofit organizations and projects that have a 501(c)(3) tax determination in their own name. Grant applicants must maintain direct responsibility for the work for which they are requesting funds.
- The WCA Foundation may make both general operating and project grants for services provided to women.
- General Operations are defined as support of a nonprofit organization’s mission rather than a specific project or program. In this case, the organization’s mission must meet the criteria described below.
- Project Support is defined as support of a specific project, that lives within an organization providing broader services, that meets the criteria described below.
- The WCA Foundation supports organizations and projects meeting the following criteria:
- Seven-County Metro
- Organization or project has a physical location in the Twin Cities seven-county metropolitan area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington) and serves clients primarily from that area.
- Age of Women
- Organization or project provides direct services to women 18 years and older. The WCA Foundation recognizes that there are situations where some receiving services are under the age of 18, but funding must be used for services predominately for women over the age of 18. The Foundation also recognizes that some programs may occasionally provide services to men, but again, funding must be used for services predominately for women.
- Funding Focus
- Services provided must meet the fundamental needs of the clients, with priority given to education, economic stability, shelter, safety, and health.
- Seven-County Metro
- The WCA Foundation does NOT make grants:
- to individuals
- to private foundations
- to fiscal agents or fiscal sponsors
- to political organizations
- for lobbying purposes
- to religious organizations for religious purposes or for projects having religious overtones or for projects wherein religion is a component of the project
- for medical research projects or to national health organizations; projects which benefit a population afflicted with a medical ailment may be considered
- for deficits already incurred
- to cover the cost of litigation
- to organizations requesting funds for either pro-life or pro-choice projects
- to organizations or projects which require their employees to raise some or all of their own salaries through their individual fundraising efforts
- Grant applications may be submitted twice each year. Application deadlines are the first Monday of May and November. Organizations may submit only one request in each grant cycle.
- Organizations that have received previous grants may submit a subsequent application if it has been at least twelve months since the submission date of their funded proposal and the organization has submitted the final report for the previously awarded grant.
- Grants currently range from $10,000 to $30,000.
Application Process
The WCA Foundation will begin accepting applications for its Spring 2022 grant round on March 24, 2022. All applications must be submitted online by the deadline of 4 p.m. on May 2, 2022.
Applications will be reviewed by members of the WCA Foundation, a volunteer-led organization whose board meets monthly. Applicants whose proposals are not chosen in an initial review will be notified roughly six weeks after submission. Applicants that are selected to advance in the review process will be invited to arrange a virtual site visit. Final grant decisions will be made monthly in batches over a period of four to six months, starting in July 2022.
As soon as you decide to apply, please log in to the Minneapolis Foundation’s online grant application portal ensure that you have access to it, and that your organization’s contact information is current. We urge applicants to begin their online application well in advance of the deadline so that any technical challenges are resolved by the deadline.
Further Assistance
If you have any questions about eligibility or the content of your proposal, please contact Jean Adams at jadams@mplsfoundation.org. If you have technical questions about this process, please contact the Minneapolis Foundation’s Grants Administration team at grantsupport@mplsfoundation.org or 612-672-8665.
