Grants

The John Templeton Foundation has announced a three-year, $3 million grant to Biola University, a private Christian university in Southern California, in support of the school's efforts to bring scholars together to research, collaborate, and write about important questions facing Christianity in the 21st century.

The Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust announced grants totaling $4.7 million — an infusion of funds for the nonprofit community that will advance work in the areas of arts and culture, services for disadvantaged children, youth mentoring, higher education research initiatives and civic engagement opportunities for older adults. A $3 million grant will expand the Center for Sustainable Health at Arizona State University.

Nonprofits are stepping up their grantseeking efforts, and although a majority see no rise in grant awards, there is collective optimism that the outlook will improve over the next six months, a new study says.

Seventy-eight percent of the 928 nonprofits responding to an online survey say they applied for more grants in the first six months of 2011 than in the same period last year, says the report from GrantStation and PhilanTECH.

The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation has announced a five-year, $5 million grant in support of a scholarship program managed by the Center for Jewish Education, an agency of The Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore.

The grant will support scholarship needs at 10 Jewish day schools in Baltimore. In developing the program, the Weinberg Foundation and the federation reviewed studies which found that the cost of a Jewish day school education in the Baltimore area is beyond the reach of more than half the families that want one.

The Western Union Foundation has announced grants totaling more than $3.4 million to organizations working to foster economic opportunity through education, training and small business development.

More than $2.3 million of the total was provided by Western Union agents, largely through giving circles, and a dollar-for-dollar foundation match. This year, the foundation also expanded a program that enables its agents to recommend nongovernmental organizations for funding; through the program, the foundation awarded grants of $10,000 to nineteen NGOs.

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund continues to help Haitians chart their own successful future with nearly $1.5 million in new grants to organizations bolstering the Haitian workforce. The three new grants will promote the training of hospitality workers, entrepreneurs, students, and teachers.

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund announced a $264,000 grant to the Oasis Foundation, a $914,000 grant to Quisqueya University and a $285,646 grant to the Haitian for-profit enterprise EducaTech.

The White House announced that nine states — California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Washington — will receive grant awards from the $500 million Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge fund, a competitive grant program jointly administered by the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services.

The Media Democracy Fund (MDF) has announced final awards of $2.1 million in its annual grant making cycle of 2011. MDF partners with foundations and donors to ensure that 21st century communications and information systems are open, fair, diverse and accessible.

MDF 2011 grants emphasize projects able to protect the public’s rights, freedom and access in this new age, specifically around six primary strategies: Legal, research and direct advocacy; Representing, bridging and building power; Increasing knowledge and amplifying the message; Capacity building; Copyright; and, Advocacy.

DoSomething.org will receive a $2 million grant from Google.org to support its innovative work leveraging technology to inspire teens to do more volunteer work.

In 2011, DoSomething.org pivoted to become a membership organization, tracking the long term engagement of individual teens. The organization leverages communications technologies like text messaging, social media, and its own popular website (which doubled traffic over the last year).

Nonprofit organizations may be struggling with a decline of donations, but there's still a source of funding that's remained strong despite the economic downturn.

Matching grant programs, in which companies provide dollar-for-dollar matches of contributions made by employees, have been growing over the past couple of years, industry experts say. The programs can provide millions of dollars in donations to nonprofit organizations, particularly small ones, that may not catch the eye of larger giving programs.