Houston Endowment Grant

Houston Endowment Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Houston Endowment
Last Updated: February 05, 2024

Summary

The Houston Endowment Grant aims to enhance community vibrancy and equity in Greater Houston. Focused on public education, civic engagement, and the arts, it seeks to empower residents through access to resources and information. The grant prioritizes initiatives that foster community connectivity and support diverse cultural organizations, ensuring that all residents can thrive. By addressing emerging opportunities and challenges, the Houston Endowment is dedicated to fostering a robust and inclusive community for all.

Overview

Our Mission Enhancing vibrancy and advancing equity of opportunity for all. Who We Are Houston Endowment is a place-based funder that is deeply committed to addressing our community’s most significant challenges and reducing barriers to opportunities. We pursue bold goals through strong partnerships, community involvement, long-term thinking, and hard work so that our region and its people thrive. Our Current Priorities Our current priorities are to strengthen public education, increase informed civic engagement, and enhance Greater Houston’s arts, cultural organizations, and greenspaces. We believe these are essential elements for a vibrant, thriving, and inclusive community. Additionally, we stand ready to address emerging opportunities with potential to significantly advance our mission. Arts and Parks Goal: Our goal is for residents to have abundant opportunities to connect and create. Our Work: We support efforts to maintain and strengthen the robustness of our local arts and cultural organizations – from world recognized institutions to emerging organizations. We also support efforts toward enhancing community connectivity through greenspaces. Civic Engagement Goal: Our goal is to increase informed civic engagement in our region. Our Work: We support a robust democracy, strong civic integration of immigrants, and independent local journalism. Our community is stronger when people participate in our democracy. In 2020, only half of eligible voters in Greater Houston voted, which is far short of the national average of 67 percent. Our goal is for Greater Houston to have the highest voter turnout per capita of any major metropolitan area in the United States. Our region is stronger when our newest residents are effectively integrated into our community. Houston is a city of immigrants, where one in three residents is foreign born and 44 percent of our children have a foreign born parent. For decades, immigrants have fueled our economy and contributed to Houston’s uniquely vibrant and diverse culture. Our goal is to ensure that new Houstonians move along the pathway to citizenship, learn how U.S. systems are organized, and gain access to critical supports. People can civically engage more effectively when they have access to high-quality information. Independent, local journalism gives residents vital information on issues that impact their lives. Our goal is to ensure that people in the Greater Houston area have access to reliable, independent, and community-focused information. Our Focus AreasDemocracy: We support work that increases voter participation among eligible voters.Civic integration of immigrants: We support work that enables effective civic integration of immigrants in Greater Houston.Independent local journalism: We support work that enhances access to high-quality, community-focused journalism. PreK-12 Public Education Goal: Our goal is tot increase the number of children that graduate from high school with choices for their future. Our Work: We believe teachers are critically important and aim to strengthen the pipeline of well-prepared and supported teachers. In addition, we support initiatives that develop and sustain high quality schools that are accessible to all families. Types of Grants If requested to submit an application, you will be asked to provide information specific to your funding request. You may preview these questions by type through the links below: General Operating SupportProject SupportFiscal Sponsored Project or Program For more information about our grantmaking process, visit the FAQs page.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Funding inquiries will be considered if and only if all of the following criteria are met:The submitting organization is a 501(c)(3) organization described in section 509(a)(1), (2), or (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. This includes public charities, governmental organizations, and eligible supporting organizations. (Organizations will be reviewed throughout the process to verify eligibility.)The concept advances one or more of our priorities.The concept will benefit the people of greater Houston, including Harris County and its contiguous counties (Brazoria, Chambers, Fort Bend, Galveston, Liberty, Montgomery and Waller counties).In addition to determining basic eligibility, we consider additional organizational criteria as part of our due diligence process, including:Strong, stable leadership and governanceSound financial managementAbility to achieve impact and help drive our vision and missionAwareness of current contextRecognition of the interconnected nature of challenges facing our communityDeep engagement with those whom the entity servesDemonstrated commitment to partner and collaborate to achieve impactEvidence that the proposed approach is likely to be effective and/or provide a significant opportunity to advance the fieldCommitment to defining clear goals and tracking results, learning and adapting, and sharing results and learnings with others

Ineligibility

Houston Endowment awards funds for a number of purposes. Typically, we do not fund:Student scholarshipsEndowment fundsFundraising events or galasIndividual memorialsLobbying efforts, as defined by the Internal Revenue ServiceReligious activities