How to Apply

Currently, we have two cycles per year. We try to keep each phase of our cycle open for around a month, so that you shouldn’t have to wait for longer than three-ish months after LOIs close for a decision. We schedule our cycles so that funding will be received before organizations’ June and December fiscal years close, but you are welcome to apply for whichever cycle makes the most sense for your needs (as long as you do not have a current grant with us).

Winter/Spring Cycle 2024
January 10: LOIs open
February 12: LOIs close, 5pm Pacific time
March 19: Selected organizations invited to submit full application.
April 5: Grant reports due from spring 2023 cycle, 5pm Pacific time.
April 19: Full applications close, 5pm Pacific time
May 22: Grants announced. Checks will be mailed within ten business days (pending received grant agreement).

Summer/Fall Cycle 2024
July 22: LOIs open
August 23: LOIs close, 5pm Pacific
September 23: Selected organizations invited to submit full application.
October 23: Full applications close, 5pm Pacific
October 25: Grant reports due from fall 2023 cycle, 5pm Pacific time.
November 25: Grants announced. Checks will be mailed within ten business days (pending received grant agreement).

Winter/Spring Cycle 2025
Please check back for dates soon.

All grant cycles are open to the public. Please know that we are working continually to make our funding more responsive and accessible. We welcome feedback and suggestions. We will post our 2025 dates ASAP.

Under-represented areas:

• Nonprofits that work internationally or domestically outside of Oregon, including regional and national organizations
• Climate crisis mitigation, especially aggressive efforts to curtail or prevent new greenhouse gas emissions
• International long-term health equity initiatives and health equity initiatives addressing aging and supporting elders
• Systemic initiatives and advocacy/policy work in any of our funding priorities 
  

If you work in these areas and are eligible within our funding priorities and restrictions, please consider applying.

Over-represented areas:

• Arts initiatives
• Oregon frontline nonprofits across all sectors
• Frontline services, especially organizations supporting people with mental health or substance use needs and organizations supporting survivors of child abuse and domestic and sexual violence
  

We value these types of work and still seek applications from these categories, but applicants may find these categories slightly more competitive if current trends continue.

Over the last year, the number of LOIs we’ve received has skyrocketed (248 in our last cycle!), likely owing to a number of factors: ascending global needs and crises, increased awareness of our existence, and “strategic pauses” enacted by other funders. Accordingly, we have had to decline an increasing number of well-aligned organizations. We are grateful for your interest in partnering with us, and we hope as much as you do that we have the opportunity to fund and partner with you!

Please see specific funding priorities for more information on trends and for updated eligibility criteria and anticipated changes.

Returning applicants
Past grant recipients are eligible to reapply as long as their grant term will have expired by when funding will be issued and as long as their final report has been submitted when we begin application review (not when we begin LOI review). For example, if you received a one-year grant in Fall 2023, you are eligible to apply again in Summer/Fall 2024, as long as you have submitted your final report by the report due date.

Applicant budget
We tend not to fund organizations with annual budgets over $20 million, although there are some exceptions. We often fund grassroots initiatives. We fund larger organizations ($10m+ budgets) only if they primarily are resource, advocacy, policy, movement-building; if they are regranting organizations; or if they work beyond the local/statewide level (regional, national, international). We also occasionally fund larger organizations working across multiple regions or countries to provide lasting frontline interventions.

General Eligibility

To be eligible for Ronald W. Naito MD Foundation funding, your organization must:

• Be a Section 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization that is classified as a public charity under Section 509(a) 1 or 2 of the United States tax code or have a fiscal sponsor with documented Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
• Have an office or affiliate office within the United States and a US EIN. (Foreign organizations with active US-equivalency determinations may also be considered.)
• Comply with Ronald W. Naito MD Foundation’s anti-discrimination policy that ensures it does not grant to organizations that discriminate based on race, ethnicity, color, sex, religion, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, disability, marital status, genetic information, veteran status, or other factors protected by law.

What We Won’t Fund
In order to meet IRS rules for private foundations, and to ensure impactful and equitable grantmaking, we will not consider grant requests from:

• Organizations whose primary constituents are not under-resourced (save in climate, which we regard of global impact). To us, “under-resourced” includes many rural communities, as well as people impacted by racial, gender, orientation, income, age, health, ability, and other biases.
• Organizations that require clients to meet certain mandates to access services (mandated “volunteering” or classes, proof of employment/job-seeking, membership dues, high barrier shelters, faith requirements or proselytizing, etc).
• Updated: Organizations with messaging or practices that are othering or exclusionary, or that don’t have strong leadership by and buy-in from the communities they are seeking to support or resource.
• Primarily government-, corporate-, member-, or industry-funded nonprofits, except when there is a specific request that can’t be funded through normal means.
• Memorial or endowment campaigns, deficit reduction, or debt retirement.
• Capital projects with budgets over $1 million. (Given the size of our grants, we tend not to fund many capital projects.)
• Fraternal organizations, service clubs, labor organizations, neighborhood associations, merchant associations, chambers of commerce, etc.
• New: Organizations closely affiliated with or co-branded with a business or celebrity.
• Section 501(c)4 or (c)6 organizations or 509(a)3 supporting organizations; political organizations or organizations designed primarily to lobby or advance legislation or political candidates.
• Private foundations. (In limited circumstances, private operating foundations may be acceptable. We are also open to funders collaboratives on our issue areas.)
• Individuals, including innovators or creators in areas that we fund.
• Updated: Faith-based organizations, even if the programs being delivered are secular. (We apologize: there’s much essential work being done by organizations within faith traditions, but we don’t have the capacity to verify program secularity.) Note: We will consider supporting history, heritage, educational, and cultural organizations or projects that explain or interpret a faith community’s experience or traditions as long as that community is historically under-resourced and as long as the organization is open to the public, non-proselytizing, and not based in a school or house of worship.
• Any cause from which our trustees or their family or business partners would benefit financially, professionally, educationally, or otherwise
• Any other activities or organizations for which support would violate IRS regulations governing private foundations.
• Impact investment opportunities through our grants. If you think we should invest in you, please reach out separately.

Please read our specific funding area pages (Climate, Health Equity, Sustainable Communities, and Oregon Arts & Education) for eligibility guidance and funding trends specific to each priority.

Once you have reviewed eligibility requirements and restrictions (above), and once you have read the relevant funding area page, please follow our submission process:

1. Go to our grant application site.
2. Log in with your existing account or set up a new account. Note: Please double-check with colleagues that an existing account does not already exist before you create a new one. (We suggest a monitored transferable login – for example, grants@[yourorganization.org] – so new users don’t have to be added when staff transitions happen.)
3. Fill out and submit an LOI. If you are a previous applicant, you will be able to use our “copy process” feature to copy previous responses into the new form for your editing and submission (please follow the directions in our system). If you would like a Word copy to work in offline, it is available here. All LOIs must be submitted through our online platform, however. It’s a straightforward form.
4. Once we have reviewed your LOI, we will let you know if you’ve made it through to the full application stage. If you have, you can access the main grant application through the same site. (Sometimes returning applicants receive our fast-track process, which means that we’ll only ask for a few additional documents from you but otherwise will consider funding you from your LOI alongside others’ full applications. We’ll let you know if that’s the case.)
5. Once you’re logged in, click “edit application.” Draft your application (it will auto-save as long as you’re connected to the internet), and attach the requested documents. If you would like a Word copy of the application to work in offline, it is available here. All applications must be submitted through our system, however. (Note: if you lack any of these documents, please reach out: we may be able to waive certain requirements.)
6. When you are finished with your application, please go back through to make sure you have ticked all the relevant boxes and filled in all the mandatory fields. We strongly suggest you save your application elsewhere before you submit it.
7. Select “Submit.” You will receive an email confirmation that your application has been received. (NOTE: We encourage you to submit early, as late submissions will only be accepted in extraordinary circumstances.)

Below are some frequently asked questions. If you can’t find the answers you’re looking for here, you are welcome to email info@rwnfoundation.org.