Fred L. Emerson Foundation Grant

Fred L. Emerson Foundation Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Fred L. Emerson Foundation
Last Updated: October 07, 2025

Summary

The Fred L. Emerson Foundation Grant focuses on impactful and sustainable projects primarily in Upstate New York, especially in Auburn and surrounding areas. The Foundation seeks innovative initiatives that address community needs and encourages collaboration with other funders. It does not support individuals or for-profit entities and emphasizes projects that demonstrate potential for significant community benefit. Organizations are required to report on project outcomes and sustainability, aligning with the Foundation's mission to honor Fred L. Emerson's legacy of generosity.

Overview

About Us We continue the work of Fred L. Emerson, who invested in individuals and the community with such humility that very few people knew of how many lives were impacted by his generosity. Under the leadership of the Emerson family, along with independent directors, the Foundation continues Fred L. Emerson’s legacy as especially vigilant investors in select organizations where it believes it can make a critical and significant difference. Priorities The philanthropic focus of the Foundation has remained true to the interests and values of its founder. Today, the Foundation’s grantmaking is focused on Upstate New York with a concentration in the founder’s community of Auburn, Cayuga County and the surrounding region. We offer the following guidance to organizations seeking our support: The Foundation provides support to a wide array of qualified organizations. We do not allocate our funding based upon predetermined categories (e.g. education, youth, etc.). Rather, our grantmaking is responsive to those opportunities that present as the most compelling, impactful, and/or sustainable.We are particularly interested in innovative projects and initiatives that address an identified need and have the potential to achieve outcomes that can be replicated.We prefer to support projects that involve other funders. From our perspective, multiple funding partners can help ensure the effectiveness and sustainability of a project.We are interested in projects that can be shown to maintain or improve the sustainability of an organization. We seek proposals that address the highest priority of an organization and where it can be shown our investment will make a critical and significant difference.We do not make grants to individuals or for-profit organizations, and we do not sponsor fundraising events or political activities.In addition to capital and programmatic support, proposals may be considered for unrestricted funding.The Foundation has a long tradition of supporting private higher education in Upstate New York. This continues to be of interest to the Foundation, but with a narrowed focus on higher education initiatives that meaningfully and directly impact the Auburn community.Grant recipients will be expected to provide the Foundation with an evaluation report upon completion of the project for which funding was provided. This report requests information regarding the specific impact of the project, how our grant helped leverage additional funding/establish new partnerships, benefits and challenges experienced during the project, and an updated income and expense budget. Interim reports may also be requested on a case-by-case basis.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. In addition to higher education, the Emerson Foundation remains actively engaged supporting non-profit organizations in Auburn, New York and the surrounding Finger Lakes region. We encourage colleges and universities that may otherwise be seeking to engage in creative scholarship work with community-based issues and organizations to consider exploring such opportunities with non-profit organizations in Auburn and the surrounding communities.

Ineligibility

We do not make grants to individuals or for-profit organizations and we do not sponsor fundraising events or political activities. Proposals seeking support solely for recurring operating expenses of an organization are strongly discouraged.