Grant Guidelines

The Silver Family Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals. Proposals are accepted by invitation only and are reviewed twice a year, in March and September. Letters of Inquiry are accepted without invitation and can be submitted anytime.

If your organization falls within our funding priorities, you may submit a Letter of Inquiry at any time during the year. Once a LOI is submitted, it will be reviewed for eligibility and alignment with our current funding priorities. If the Foundation determines that an organization's mission aligns with the Silver Family Foundation giving guidelines they may be invited to submit a proposal for funding.

General Eligibility to Apply:

All organizations must submit a Letter Of Inquiry through our online Grant Portal.
Eligible organizations must be a registered, verifiable 501(c)(3) non-profit.
All organizations, services and staff should be based in Oregon, Washington or Idaho.
Programming should be established — with an implemented measurement tool or process.
Organizations should be prepared to supply program outputs and outcomes. Read more about reporting of program outcomes vs. outputs.
Applicants should supply a list of other committed sources of funding.

Exclusions to note:

The Foundation does not support grants to individuals.
One-time events or short annual events (such as conferences) are not eligible for funding.
Most requests for Capital Campaigns are not accepted.
The Foundation does not make grants to organizations outside of our geographic scope of Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

Submitting a Grant Proposal

If your organization has been invited to submit an application for funding, the following deadlines apply:

Spring Cycle: Proposals should be submitted through our grant portal by 11:59 pm on March 31st. Grant awards will be made in June.
Fall Cycle: Proposals should be submitted through our grant portal by 11:59 pm on September 30th. Grant awards will be made in December.

The Foundation accepts requests for general operating expenses.

A site visit is required prior to a grant award. All grant applications are submitted online through our grant portal. In order to meet our biannual deadlines, submissions must be received in our grant portal by the deadline. Late submissions will not be accepted.

Each year, grantees must submit an online annual report, via our grant portal, describing how the funds were spent.

Report deadlines are as follows:

For fall cycle awards (made in December), the report deadline is November 1st the following year.
For spring cycle awards (made in June), the report deadline is May 1st the following year.

Questions may be directed to sara@silverfoundation.org

General Eligibility to Apply:

Exclusions to note:

The Foundation does not support grants to individuals.

​One-time events or short annual events (such as conferences) are not eligible for funding.

Most requests for Capital Campaigns are not accepted.

The Foundation does not make grants to organizations outside of our geographic scope of Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

One-time events or short annual events (such as conferences) are not eligible for funding.