Foundation-Directed Grantmaking

The Pittsburgh Foundation aims to foster a vibrant, equitable, and just community in the Pittsburgh region through its Foundation-Directed Grantmaking. Focus areas include Basic Needs, Equity and Social Justice, Arts and Culture, Economic Mobility, and Environmental Action. The Foundation prioritizes support for organizations serving low-income communities and those impacted by social injustices. By aligning grantmaking with community aspirations, they strive to ensure everyone can thrive and access essential resources and opportunities.

Vision and Focus Areas
Under our strategic plan, we strive to strengthen our focus on community and the positive impact that can be achieved through our grantmaking. From time to time, we have special grant-making opportunities related to specific regions or to issues such as juvenile justice or senior care.
The Pittsburgh Foundation is committed to helping the communities we serve become equitable and vibrant places where everyone can thrive. We align our grantmaking with resident’s dreams for themselves, their families and their communities and prioritize support in the five focus areas listed below.
Basic Needs
Across our basic needs grantmaking, we are committed to expanding knowledge of, improving access to, and improving coordination among local resources and human services.
Food Access: We seek to support programs and services that assist low-income individuals and families to obtain enough food. Child Care: We seek to ensure equitable access to quality child care. Education: We strive to ensure access to high-quality in-class education as well as culturally-responsive,  out-of-school time programs.Mental and Physical Health: We aim to support the mental and physical health needs of residents by ensuring access to quality, affordable and culturally responsive services. Housing: We seek to support or fill gaps in a county-wide eviction prevention system, and help support those living in transitional housing and/or facing unexpected loss of housing.Employment: We seek to support youth and adults who experience significant barriers to employment.
Equity and Social Justice
We seek to support civic participation and community organizing to achieve policy changes.
Our equity and social justice grantmaking places strong emphasis on leadership by individuals who have been directly impacted by systemic injustice, as we believe that they are best positioned to propose solutions that remove barriers that impeded their ability to thrive.
Civic ParticipationVoter Engagement: We seek to support the ability of the nonprofit sector to engage historically underrepresented populations and communities that have documented low voter turnout. Access to Information: We seek to support public media  outlets and other platforms that produce professional, regionally focused, fact-based news coverage and information. Community-Driven SolutionsProtect Basic Needs:  We seek to support grassroots organizations and resident-informed initiatives that address barriers that prevent families from being able to meet their basic needs and thrive.End Mass Incarceration:  We seek to uplift and provide resources for community-led efforts to change policies and practices that result in over-policing and over-incarceration.Youth Justice:  We are interested in supporting intervention and prevention activities that support youth who have any involvement with the criminal and juvenile justice systems.
Environmental Action
We seek to protect the health of our communities and the preservation of our environment.
Our environmental action grantmaking prioritizes support for projects, initiatives and collaborations that center communities in environmental decision-making and amplify the intersectional nature of working to protect the health of our communities and the preservation of our environment. While we will continue to prioritize projects serving residents of Allegheny County, we will also consider on a case-by-case basis projects that work across the southwest Pennsylvania 12-county region.
Equitable Access to Land, Water, and Air: To promote equitable access to land, air and water, we seek to support community-centered conservation and stewardship of natural resources.Learning and Action: We seek to address the harms of chronic pollution and mitigate future impacts, translate research into action to protect the health of communities and their environments and support resident voice in environmental decision-making in their communities.
Arts and Culture
We seek to strengthen small-to-mid-sized arts organizations and support individual artists by fostering a diverse, healthy and just arts ecosystem.
Small-to-Mid-Sized Arts Organizations: Small and Mid-Size Arts Organizations face disparities in their ability to access resources.Support for Careers and Lives of Individual Artists: Through this funding to individual artists, the Foundation hopes that the Pittsburgh region will be exposed to the breadth of human experience and the unparalleled talent the region has to offer.
Economic Mobility
We seek to reduce the wealth gap in Allegheny County.
Access to Post-Secondary Education: We seek to support programs that enable students to earn college credit while in high school; admissions navigation support and academic and financial counseling; re-engagement strategies for students who have stopped attending school; and supports for non-traditional students.Career Advancement: We are interested in supporting organizations that offer technology training with career potential.  Entrepreneurship: We are interested in efforts to increase entrepreneurship.Homeownership: In 2025, applications for the Homeownership focus area will be by invitation only.
Types of Grants
Recognizing that nonprofits need flexible support that allows them to adapt to changing community needs, we offer applicants the opportunity to apply for two types of grant support:
Project/Program Support:  Funds are used to develop and/or implement a specific set of programmatic activities. These grants are usually time-bound and aimed at achieving specific goals and milestones.General Operating Support: Funds can be used at the discretion of the organization to cover any costs necessary to carry out its mission. This means that the grant award can be used to cover day-to-day activities or ongoing expenses such as administrative salaries, rent and office supplies, etc., as well as for program costs, software and hardware purchases, and professional development
Our Priorities
We will prioritize funding for organizations that reflect one or more of the following:

• Primarily serve communities disproportionately impacted by poverty.
• Have a demonstrated commitment to addressing the historical and present-day impact of social injustices on the specific communities it serves.
• Have an established history in the communities in which it works.

Are representative of the communities it serves, including but not limited to, leadership and staff who have lived experience in the community issues that it addresses.
Meaningfully integrate the experience and perspectives of the communities that it serves in the design, implementation, evaluation and/or decision-making process for its strategies and/or programs.
Funding
Generally, grants will be awarded for no more than two years due to limited availability of funds. One-year grants generally range from $10,000 to $75,000. Two-year grants will generally not exceed $150,000.
In limited situations, proposals that align with one or more of our grantmaking focus areas and with grantmaking priorities, and that clearly demonstrate the need and potential impact, may be considered for a larger grant. Organization leaders should have a conversation with a program officer before submitting a request for more than $150,000.

Eligibility

To qualify for a grant, your nonprofit organization must be:Located within Allegheny County or demonstrate service to Allegheny County residents.Designated by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) organization. (If your organization does not have 501(c)(3) status, you may apply utilizing a fiscal sponsor.)

Ineligibility

What We Do Not FundOrganizational start-up support.Statewide or national organizations, unless they have an established local office or chapter that meets the above eligibility criteria and priorities.Projects that expressly advocate for or endorse a specific candidate for elected office.Annual appeals or event sponsorships.Episodic and/or one-time programs and events.Capital expenses and/or campaigns.Direct funding for individuals (except individual artists).Payments on organizational debt.Costs and activities that are completed before a requested grant has received a decision from our board.University overhead costs.Single-disease support organizations.Educational scholarships. Academic Research.