Announcing temporary changes to Community Grants program for 2023

The purpose of the Charitable Foundation is to help make New Hampshire a community where everyone can thrive. The future of our state, our shared prosperity and well-being depend on that. We need to draw on the potential, strength, ingenuity and grace of every person to make our state healthier, happier, more prosperous and a better place to live for all.

Our new strategic plan “Together We Thrive,” launched last year, focuses on advancing equity, racial justice and economic security across all areas of the Foundation’s work to advance that purpose.

As part of the implementation of this plan, we are reviewing and improving our grant application programs, starting with Community Grants, to increase engagement in the grantmaking process of people most affected by the issues we seek to address and to maximize accessibility and accountability to the community.

To make the time and space for staff to work on those improvements, we are making adjustments to this year’s Community Grants program. Instead of offering two grant opportunities — Express Grants for one year of project funding and Unrestricted Grants for three years of operating support — we will offer a single, one-year, Unrestricted Grant program with awards of up to $20,000. There will be no Express Grant program in 2023. Applications for the Unrestricted Grants program will be accepted beginning on Monday, July 10 with submissions due by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, September 8. Applicants will be notified of a grant decision in mid-December. Additional details can be found on our Unrestricted Grant program page.

As we begin this work, there are some messages that we have heard loud and clear from New Hampshire’s nonprofits. Nonprofits want more multi-year unrestricted grants, streamlined applications commensurate to grant size, and open lines of communication with the Foundation. Rest assured that we will return to multi-year unrestricted grants in 2024, we will continue to streamline our applications, and we will always be available to answer your questions, listen to your concerns, and hear about the great work you’re doing in our communities.

We want New Hampshire to be a place where we can all thrive, together. We believe that by elevating community voices, sharing decision-making power and creating solutions together, we can create more equitable and lasting change.

Thank you for all you do for New Hampshire and for your patience as we develop new ways to support our communities.