Aaron Straus and Lillie Straus Foundation Grant

Aaron Straus and Lillie Straus Foundation Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Aaron Straus and Lillie Straus Foundation
Last Updated: September 27, 2025

Summary

The Aaron Straus and Lillie Straus Foundation focuses on enhancing opportunities for Baltimore families through education, health services, and community engagement. Since its establishment in 1926, it has prioritized support for Jewish communities, immigration advocacy, and social innovation. The foundation aims to connect families to resources that foster resilience and growth, ensuring they can thrive in a supportive environment. By investing in local initiatives and emerging leaders, the foundation seeks to create lasting impact in the Baltimore region.

Overview

Our History Aaron and Lillie Straus created the Straus Foundation in 1926 with a focus on rescue and relief of Jewish communities and families throughout the world as well as and connecting children in the Baltimore region to opportunities that could help them build strong and secure futures. Since the Strauses had no heirs, the stewardship of the Foundation was entrusted to the Directors of Reliable Stores Corporation, which Aaron Straus had founded. The Strauses were actively engaged in their philanthropy during much of their lifetime and their mission and vision remains an indelible blueprint for the work of the Foundation. Today, the Straus Foundation is governed by a Board comprised of descendants of the original corporate Board as well as outside Directors with expertise in various aspects of its community interests. Our Mission Aaron and Lillie Straus’ clearly focused philanthropic vision, to give the people of Baltimore protection, education, and opportunity, continues today in a contemporary context. With the Foundation’s long-term support of critical policies and programs, our intention and aspiration remains a reflection of their original vision: to connect families of Baltimore to avenues of hope and opportunity that tap their potential for a more secure future. Our Approach In order to maximize the impact of our limited resources, we remain singularly focused on the Baltimore community by shining a light on its unique assets, talent and vibrancy, while continuing to search for solutions for our most entrenched inequities. We optimize the possibility of impact by taking risks on emerging leaders and community solutions by providing partnership, capital and technical assistance. When leaders and solutions show promising impact, we will commit funding over a long period of time to promote growth. Our Priorities The Straus Foundation has identified the following program areas to serve as a blueprint for our grantmaking. However, we acknowledge that there will be many intersections between all four areas. Jewish Community Services The Straus Foundation has deep Jewish roots, and supporting Jewish families will always be a priority. Jewish values, particularly the value of social justice, inform all of our grantmaking. The Foundation’s grantees in this priority area are Camps Airy & Louise, a boys and a girl’s camp in Western Maryland for Jewish children. The camps were started by Aaron and Lillie Straus to provide the values and development of a camping experience to Jewish children from Baltimore and the surrounding area, regardless of their economic background. Today, the camps continue this tradition by providing opportunities for self-growth, life skills, life-long friendships, an appreciation for the natural world, and an affirmation of Jewish identity. Immigration Advocacy and Services: Making Baltimore a Welcoming City For close to 100 years, Aaron and Lillie Straus devoted time, resources, and a strategic vision for the health and resettlement of waves of immigrants coming into Baltimore. The understanding was that new Americans would thrive both personally and professionally, with great benefit to the city. While this same premise holds true today, with 50,000 foreign-born immigrants living in Baltimore City, immigration policy must be urgently addressed while ensuring legal and social services are delivered upon their arrival. Access to Quality Health/Mental Health Services: Creating Opportunities for Personal and Community Well-Being While structural racism, violence and persistent underinvestment in communities have led to many in Baltimore experiencing significant trauma, the people of this city also have immense strength and resilience. With that knowledge, the Foundation strives to connect children and families to early detection and prevention as a strategy to decrease the use of emergency room and other services on the most expensive side of the health delivery system and to make readily available the full array of family planning services. We look to fund opportunities that create culturally competent, community-based access to health services as well as advocacy efforts around rights and reimbursement. Social Innovation, Leadership and Entrepreneurship For the last decade, The Straus Foundation has focused on the intersection of social innovation, leadership, and entrepreneurship for the purpose of catalyzing the unique assets and talents of the city of Baltimore. In a short period of time, Baltimore has created a growing ecosystem that attracts and celebrates new leaders seeking more effective, efficient, and sustainable solutions to strengthen the city. We seek to equitably support promising entrepreneurs and their ideas in order to democratize opportunity, provide capital, support technical assistance, and create a new vibrancy in our city. Alternative Grantmaking In addition to making grants in its five program areas, The Straus Foundation will, from time to time, make allocations in the following ways: Foundation-Driven Initiatives: Specifics Requests for Proposal will be issued for these initiatives, and grants will be made through a competitive process; Funding Collaboratives: Straus Foundation dollars will be pooled with other private and public resources for a specific programmatic purpose. The collaborative will then make grants through a competitive Request for Proposal process; Loans: The Foundation will occasionally make a loan instead of a grant to an organization for a specific project or programmatic interest. The Foundation does not make loans to individuals or organizations for emergency needs; and Program-Related Investments: The Foundation will, on occasion, invest a portion of its corpus for the purpose of meeting a programmatic need as well as receiving a market-rate return on its investment.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. The Straus Foundation funds almost exclusively in the Baltimore metropolitan region. The Foundation only accepts proposals that are consistent with its programmatic priorities.The Foundation strongly encourages all nonprofit organizations to use vendors in Baltimore City or the State of Maryland for their business or research-related contracts.The Foundation encourages all nonprofit organizations to urge their employees or clients to access the Earned Income Tax Credit and all other benefits for which they might be eligible.

Ineligibility

Grants are not given to individuals or to endowment campaigns.