Mitchell Foundation Grants

The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation supports impactful projects in Texas, focusing on environmental protection, social equity, and economic vitality. Their strategic grantmaking emphasizes clean energy, land conservation, subsurface energy, sustainability education, and water resources. The foundation seeks proposals that align with their mission and demonstrate a clear benefit to Texas. Projects funded must have a robust communication strategy to share outcomes effectively, ensuring lasting impacts on the communities served.

NOTE: If your project fits within these specifications, you are welcome to complete the Letter of Inquiry. You will be notified if a grant application proposal is warranted. We are able to fund only a small fraction of requests, and a rejection is not a reflection on the value of your project or organization. The Mitchell Foundation appreciates your efforts and dedication to creating a sustainable Texas.
The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation funds high‐impact projects in the state of Texas at the nexus of environmental protection, social equity, and economic vibrancy.
To accomplish our goals, we develop long-term, strategic guidelines for our grantmaking and make disciplined and intentional funding decisions based on these guidelines.
Current strategic grantmaking programs focus on the following initiatives:

• Clean Energy

The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation is committed to clean energy in the state of Texas and supports strategic efforts that ensure that the state’s growing demand for power is both minimized and met with the cleanest and water-leanest sources of electricity possible. Our clean energy program has three areas of focus:

• Enhancing Distributed Energy Resources (DERs); Catalyzing community-scale energy projects; and
• Reducing Industrial emissions.
• Land Conservation

Texas possesses an ecologically diverse and biologically significant network of lands, waters, and habitat at a scale that only Alaska rivals. About 95 percent of Texas land is privately owned and managed, which means that private landowners have enormous influence over the long-term health and sustainability of the Texas landscape.
It also means that private land conservation—permanent protection, stewardship, and restoration—plays a critical role in ensuring that future generations of Texans will enjoy and benefit from a broad range of natural resource values provided by these lands. Values associated with healthy land include wildlife habitat and migration corridors, clean water and air, watershed health, soil productivity, recreational access, and so many more.
Subsurace Energy
George P. Mitchell was an early pioneer of shale gas discovery and production and is credited for making shale development commercially viable. He was considered an elder statesman in the industry, taking a leadership role in addressing the challenges of shale production.
At the same time, George had a long history of supporting his keen interests in science and sustainability. Because of George's position in the oil and gas industry, the environmental community, and science circles, the foundation is able to lend its voice to the ongoing dialogue and debate about shale development.
Sustainability Education
Significant gifts from the Mitchells to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996 and 2001 to study the scientific merit of sustainability helped launch a new field of academic endeavor: Sustainability Science.
The sustainability science approach to solving complex environmental and social problems aims to bring together scholarship and practice, global and local perspectives, and disciplines across natural and social sciences.
Water
Water is the most important natural resource in Texas. Ensuring sufficient, clean water is intrinsically tied to a sustainable future. The Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation envisions a future with ample and healthy waters above and below ground that sustain rich, diverse ecosystems while minimizing effects of infrastructure on water quantity and quality throughout Texas and the Gulf of Mexico.

Eligibility

As a general rule, applicants should base their determination on three criteria. The proposed project must align with a specific foundation program;focus on the state of Texas; andclearly demonstrate how the project supports the relevant foundation grantmaking strategy.

Ineligibility

In general, the foundation is unable to provide grants to organizations that are not classified as 501(c)(3) public charities by the Internal Revenue Service.The foundation does not support research unless it contains an explicit and practical policy application or outcome.The foundation is unable to make grants intended to support candidates for political office or to lobby in support of or against legislation.The foundation does not fund the research, development, commercialization, or demonstration of technology.The foundation does not fund demonstration projects.