Grant Guidelines

The Dodge Foundation’s 2010 Guidelines focus on four areas of interest that we believe work together to foster a more creative and sustainable New Jersey.  Funding priority will be given to those applicants that meet multiple criteria, either under a single category or across all of the Foundation’s guidelines.

We invite proposals for general operating or project-specific support from organizations that:

Enhance the cultural richness of the community in which they reside and contribute to New Jersey’s creative economy.

Priority will be given to those that:

  • Pursue and demonstrate the highest standards of artistic excellence;
  • Provide opportunities for meaningful connections between people and art within their communities, and partner with others to expand the inclusiveness and the impact of the arts; 
  • Contribute to the diverse human narrative by creating new work and/or re-imagining the classics;
  • Provide creative opportunities and living wages for New Jersey artists;
  • Use the arts to revitalize public places and natural spaces and/or help citizens engage in and advocate for the environmental well-being of their communities.

Provide transformational, experiential educational opportunities both inside and outside of the classroom for young people who have limited access to educational excellence.
   
Priority will be given to programs designed to stimulate and reinforce learning in the following areas:

  • Building an ecological consciousness through direct experience of the natural world;
  • Enhancing creativity through immersion in the arts;
  • Promoting critical and creative thinking through “real world” experiences and civic leadership opportunities;
  • Supporting teachers who provide these opportunities.

Promote healthy ecosystems and sustainable communities in New Jersey.

Priority will be given to those that:

  • Increase the resiliency of watersheds, wetlands, and estuaries, and integrate water and land-use planning, resource management, and stewardship;
  • Implement urban greening efforts, including creating community-supported park space and/or urban farms, enhancing green infrastructure through innovative design, and transforming brownfields to greenfields;
  • Support urban-rural linkages around working lands, such as community-supported agriculture and innovative practices for natural resource use and management.

Use traditional and new media to educate the public about issues in the Foundation’s areas of interest and to promote new paradigms towards a creative, sustainable New Jersey.

Priority will be given to those that:

  • Inspire dialogue, learning, and civic engagement;
  • Engage people in new ways;
  • Use innovative means to effectively deliver information at the community scale, especially in communities that have a stated sustainability goal.

Overarching Considerations

High-Potential, Innovative, Collaborative Programs and Models:  The Foundation is open to proposals that take a “big-picture” approach, particularly an interdisciplinary one that cannot be neatly contained within the guidelines above.  Organizations may request seed grants to design and pilot new approaches to fostering Creativity and Sustainability in New Jersey, including entrepreneurial initiatives and cross-sectoral partnerships.  The Foundation is also open to: expanding existing successful programs into new communities; helping take existing programs to scale; documenting “what works” and lessons learned; and disseminating that information to a broader audience.

Place-Based Grantmaking: Wherever possible and appropriate, the Foundation strives to make connections between and among the efforts of its grantees working in the same community.  We will continue to make a special effort to take an integrative, place-based approach with organizations and agencies who fit the guidelines above in our hometown of Morristown.  We aspire to do the same in New Jersey’s largest city, Newark, where the Foundation has made significant investments over time, and we are open to taking a place-based approach elsewhere in response to the initiatives of new applicants and our current grantees.

Awareness of Public Policy.  We also strive to be aware of the public policy environment in which our grantees operate and will support timely policymaking efforts and/or advocacy campaigns that seek to advance priority funding areas.

Restrictions. The Foundation does not make capital grants, and we do not fund individuals. Dodge does not generally make grants to institutions of higher learning, except for their outreach efforts which complement and enhance the Foundation’s other efforts.

For all applicants, the following criteria and preferences apply:

  • Applicants must be 501(c)3 organizations and fiscally sound.
  • The organization must have professional staff, with effective leadership.
  • We look for a high-functioning Board, and we prefer to fund organizations that have 100% of their Trustees making an annual personal financial contribution.
  • We look for evidence that applicants are committed to continuous improvement, such as being highly intentional in the way they assess their own work, and mindful of where they are in their own organizational lifecycle.

 

Click here to apply

Click here to read "Moving From Values to Action: Background to the Guidelines"