How much should I apply for in the Healthy Environment portfolio?

We have covered more than a thousand miles visiting Oregon’s four corners to talk to folks about the goals of Meyer’s Healthy Environment portfolio and the new funding opportunities for 2016.

One of the more common questions we’ve been hearing in regards to the Healthy Environment portfolio has been: How much should I apply for?

That is a great question without a simple answer. We can say that Meyer is rarely the first funder or only funder of a project. We look for projects that leverage other resources and for projects that have the support and involvement of the community.

Each of Meyer’s portfolios offer guidelines for the 2016 funding opportunities and provide ranges for the types of requests that we’ll be accepting.

The Healthy Environment portfolio’s funding ranges can be found here. In general, we expect only to make a few grants at the high end of the range and expect that some of our grants will be one-year awards while others will be multi-year projects. We predict that awards granted at the top of the range will tend to be bigger, more complex and multi-year projects that may involve several organizations working collaboratively. In addition to project length and size, we will also look at the grant request relative to the full budget for the project and the organization, and how much of that organization’s budget Meyer would support if it has multiple grants.

No single factor determines the answer. So, consider these points and try to craft a request that makes sense within the ranges.

See more answers to questions we’ve heard on our FAQs page. And, finally, reach out to the portfolio staff or questions [at] mmt.org (questions[at]mmt[dot]org) if you want to talk through a grant request size.

Don’t forget: the deadline to submit inquiry applications for the 2016 Healthy Environment funding opportunities is 5 p.m. on Monday, June 6th, 2016.