Reasons for Hope Micro-Grant Program

The Reasons for Hope Micro-Grant Program, initiated by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, offers grants between $1,000 and $10,000 to support community-driven initiatives in Milwaukee. Funded by a $340,000 pool, it aims to foster social connections, promote peace, and enhance community cohesion, particularly in response to challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and historical violence. This program prioritizes under-resourced efforts that empower local voices and advocate for community representation.

Reasons for Hope MKE Fund
The Reasons for Hope MKE grant offers a prompt response grant opportunity to support community-based actions and activities that encourage social connections, promote peace, and build community cohesion.
Amid the Sherman Park Uprising that followed the murder of Sylville Smith in 2016, the Foundation created the Reasons for Hope MKE Fund. In 2022, the Foundation made a significant investment in community-led violence prevention efforts out of the MKE Respond Fund, which began to meet emergent needs evolving due to the Covid-19 pandemic. These two funds were created to support the many people and organizations who are seeking to act in their neighborhoods now, on the ground serving alongside their community. For 2023, the integration of Reasons for Hope and violence prevention efforts under MKE Responds allows the Foundation to offer an available grant pool of approximately $340,000.
This grant program intends to provide highly-targeted, immediate support to smaller, under-resourced community efforts, over a short term. Our intention is to avoid advancing a “quick-fix” to the broad and complex problems afflicting our neighborhoods, instead prioritizing community power and representation, while leveraging a community advisory council to advance proposals that build equity into our way of being.
How it will work?
Funding
Grants from the Fund will range from $1,000 to $10,000.
Grant recommendations of submitted proposals are evaluated with framework built upon the 414Life Milwaukee Blueprint for Peace. Successful proposals will demonstrate an effective community-based strategy to advance progress toward one of these goals:
Promote healing and restorative justiceSupport children, youth, and familiesAdvance economic opportunityFoster safe and strong neighborhoodsStrengthen capacity and coordination of violence prevention efforts

Eligibility

The Fund will award grants to projects or programs within the city of Milwaukee neighborhoods.The fund will consider proposals from groups, agencies and organizations with a charitable status as determined by the IRS internal revenue code 501(c) 3. Please note: Entities that do not have this designation may use a fiscal sponsor (organization recognized as a 501 (c) 3 charitable entity) to serve as the recipient and manager of the grant. Eligible nonprofits are required to have board membership that is at least 10 percent people of color. The term “people of color” refers to all persons who are not categorized as white by the U.S. Census.

Ineligibility

What the Foundation does NOT fundIndividuals or individual schoolsOngoing operating expensesDebt reduction or agency endowmentsSectarian organizations for religious purposesFor-profit organizationsPartisan political activities