Grantmaking Principles

In advance of our 2024 Funding Opportunity, Meyer's leadership and Impact team codified a set of principles to guide our work.

Flexibility and Stability
We have heard the importance of general operating support and multi-year funding. Long-term flexible funding allows organizations to allocate resources where they are most needed, making room for innovation, emergence and impact.

Transparency
We are committed to providing increased clarity about what we’re funding (what we’re not), how the process works and how decisions are made. 

A Holistic Approach
We are anchored by our programmatic portfolios, but committed to investing in community and culturally-specific initiatives and strategies that support leadership development, civic engagement, organizing and policy change for sustainable progress. 

Diverse Funding Opportunities
We believe in open funding opportunities, invite-only projects and Meyer-directed funding as part of focused, flexible partnerships and opportunities. 

Stakeholder-Informed Change
We know work will be inherently more successful if it is informed by the expertise and experience of our grantee partners and communities.

Deeper Relationships
We want to integrate more conversation and grantee engagement as part of our reporting. By reducing our reliance on written reports, we can gain a deeper understanding of the work and navigate challenges collaboratively.

Shared Indicators of Success
We are committed to developing progress indicators by listening to and learning what success looks like in the field. While we strive to show our positive impact on Oregon’s lands and peoples, we aim to do so in a way that contributes to and does not extract from our partners. 

Accountability
We are continually assessing where we can improve and aim to regularly share our learnings, vision and impact with our community. 

Support Beyond the Check
We know we have more to offer than dollars alone. We are committed to utilizing our assets, capacity and organizational position to support the success of our grantees, partners and community. 

Distributed Decision-Making
The power to make grantmaking decisions doesn’t only lie with our Board of Trustees. They have delegated approval authority for certain aspects of grantmaking to our CEO and, we are continuing to grow and set new goals in this area.