GRANT APPLICATION OVERVIEW

We make grants to organizations that undertake systemic social justice litigation.

  • The Foundation accepts LOIs from June 1 until June 15, 2025, for grants to be awarded for the following fiscal year of the Foundation, which is October 1, 2025, to September 30, 2026.

    Upon review of the LOIs, the Foundation will notify by July 15, 2025, applicants who will be invited to submit an online Grant Application by August 1, 2025, to be considered by the Foundation’s Grant Committee.

  • Applications must be for a specific social justice legal case, including the filing of an appeal.

    The case must have been filed no earlier than October 1, 2023, or be filed no later than December 31, 2025.

    Grant funds are to be used only for attorney time charges and litigation expenses related to the specific case for which an organization is applying to be funded.

    Grants are not made for:

    1. Criminal cases.

    2. Claim(s) for an individual(s) (unless the case is of significant precedential value beyond the interest of the individual).

    3. An amicus brief.

    The Barbara McDowell Foundation only provides grants to 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations.

  • All LOIs and Grant Applications must be submitted using the online forms.

    Interested applicants should review the Grant Criteria, Application Scoring Criteria, and Reporting and Grant Terms pages of the website before completing and submitting the online forms.

Grant applications to the Barbara McDowell Foundation occur in a two-step process: a Letter of Intent (LOI) followed by a Grant Application.

In the first step, nonprofit organizations meeting the eligibility criteria below can submit a LOI to the Foundation using the online form. After submission online, all LOIs are reviewed by the Foundation’s Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee selects from the organizations submitting LOIs the applicants to proceed to the second step of the process.

In the second step, the selected applicants submit an online Grant Application for review by the Foundation’s Grant Committee. The Grant Committee reviews the applications and sends a subset of applications to the Foundation’s Board of Directors for review. The Board of Directors makes the final selection of the Grantees from that subset of applications. Notification of the grant award occurs in late September.

Questions on the grant process? Email us.