What is the Foundation's policy on including indirect costs in a grant?

As a general rule, the Foundation does not pay for overhead or indirect costs. In cases when it is considered a requirement of the grant, a maximum of 10% of the project's direct costs may be included as overhead in the budget.

How do you define "youth"?

We generally fund kindergarten through high school, ages six to eighteen. Projects must focus on young people as the primary participants or beneficiaries.

Can I contact someone to see what kinds of projects you are interested in or whether my proposal is appropriate?

We do not provide guidance for applicants. We have no staffed office, so we made sure our website tells our story, gives guidance, answers questions and makes it easy for you to send a brief form of your proposal (no letter of inquiry needed) directly to the board members who make decisions. We encourage you to study the website for what we support and do not support. If you do not find an answer, send an inquiry to info@charlottemartin.org.

I am confused by the information about your foundation contained in the printed Foundation Directories. The guidelines and deadlines are different from the website. Which source is correct?

Always follow the Website, which has the current, correct and complete information.

How do you define the Western States?

Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska.

Do you ever fund outside that area? 

Rarely.

Do you make site visits?

Occasionally.  The Board members operate as program officers, without staff.  Time and distance can limit site visits.

Do you make multi-year grants? 

Only for select projects initiated or developed by the Board.

What is the range of amounts of grants? How do we know how much to ask for? 

Smaller grants requests are encouraged. The maximum amount per grant is $10,000.

When are the deadlines and when are decisions made?

There are currently three funding cycles:
Cycle 1: Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2012. Grants awarded by March 31, 2012.
Cycle 2: Deadline for submissions: April 30, 2012. Grants awarded by June 15, 2012.
Cycle 3: Deadline for submissions: September 30, 2012. Grants awarded by November 15, 2012.

What happens after we send our application?

You will receive an email confirmation that your application has been submitted. If you did not get a confirmation message, or the system crashed before you submitted, please contact Rebekah Wadadli at rwadadli@foundationsource.com.

Can you tell me why I didn't receive funding?

We do not provide individual critiques of requests. Each year the Charlotte Martin Foundation funds approximately one in every 20 unsolicited proposals it receives. Due to the volume of requests received and finite resources available, many excellent proposals fail to receive Foundation funding.

Rejection of a proposal does not necessarily reflect negatively on the applicant. Some requests that were not successful in the first attempt were funded in subsequent cycles.

Some of the possible reasons why a proposal does not rise to the top:

• The project's emphasis is on social service outcomes or passive involvement, rather than on the active participation of youth in education, culture or athletics.
   
• We give priority to underserved groups of youth, particularly rural, that have less access to financial and community resources.
   
• The proposal does not give specifics of what the project activity is, what the youth will do and how many young people will be involved, or what wildlife or habitat will be preserved.
   
• The project does not appear sustainable, and we do not give multi-year grants.
  
  
• Other projects in the same funding cycle were more compelling in our highly competitive process.
  
  
• The budget is not justified; the work to be accomplished is not clearly tied to the amount being asked for
  
  
• We do not fund therapies involving animals (our animal category is exclusively for wildlife preservation)
  
  

When can we reapply?

If you received a declination letter that says your project did not meet the guidelines, then you are not encouraged to reapply.

If your organization and your project are eligible but did not rise to the top in the current cycle, you may reapply in the next cycle.