Apply Here
How to Apply
501 (C)(3) Organizations
Proposals will be considered from eligible 501(c)(3) organizations whose work reflects the Lumpkin Family Foundation’s mission and complies with applicable laws regarding registration and reporting.
If you are not a 501(c)(3) organization and have a question about funding eligibility, please contact us. Specific application requirements, such as program focus areas, can be found within the individual program descriptions.
The Lumpkin Family Foundation serves the people and communities of East Central Illinois and/or the Chicagoland area. Organizations operating outside these geographic areas will not be considered.
WE ACCEPT ALL OF OUR LETTERS OF INQUIRY, APPLICATIONS, AND GRANT REPORTS ONLINE. VIEW A BRIEF VIDEO TUTORIAL HERE.
Our grant management platform, Foundant, uses Google Translate so you may review the application in a language most comfortable to you.
We accept all of our letters of inquiry, applications, and grant reports online.
Eligibility
501 (c)(3) organization
Located in East Central Illinois or Chicago Area
Requesting support in our core focus areas
Fiscal Sponsorships
For those using a fiscal sponsor, we will ask for a copy of your sponsorship agreement. The fiscal sponsor will be responsible for grant application and reporting.
In the fiscal sponsorship agreement, we are generally looking for four important things:
- That there is an agreement, in writing, and signed by both parties. Often, especially in early start ups, fiscal sponsorships can be very informal.
- Clarity that the sponsor has ultimately discretion over the use of grant funds.
- The fee that the sponsor is charging the project.
- A plan for what happens if there are problems – that the two parties have already agreed to a process for how they will separate and what will happen to the project funds if the project dissolves, or the sponsor dissolves, or any of the thousand other possibilities.
Start Your Application
If you are new to our site, click on the “Apply Now” link above and then the button “Create a New Account.” This will start the guided process to establish an account for your organization. If you are not sure if your organization already has an account with us, please contact us for assistance before creating a new one.
Once logged into the grant management system, click on the link on the top left “Start a New Application.” This will display all open grant programs. Select the one you would like to apply for, and fill in the form. Please remember to SAVE YOUR WORK at least every 30 minutes. Some of our grant applicants find it helpful to work on their responses in a word document and then copy and paste them into the online form.
We ask for all of your documents in electronic form. After you have applied, you can log back in to see the status of your grants with us. For questions regarding the grant management platform or any part of the application process, please contact us.
Please Direct Inquiries To:
Lindy Wheatley
Program Assistant
Phone: 27-234-2095
Email: lindy@lumpkinfoundation.org
Our grant programs, with the exception of the Good Food Policy Program*, have open application processes once per year that begin with a Letter of Inquiry (LOI). The entire LOI and application process is online. We do not accept materials via mail or email.
View our grant programs or click here to apply.
When a cycle opens for a particular program, eligible organizations are encouraged to submit an LOI through our grant management system. Organizations will be notified via email of their LOI acceptance or declination on or before the “applications invited” date. If a full application is requested, a committee of members and community volunteers will review your application upon submission.
Your LOI will be reviewed to determine whether the proposed effort fits sufficiently with our Mission and Program Goals to merit further review. If so, we will invite you to submit a full application. View our grant programs or click here to apply.
We do our best to keep the entire application process to 12 weeks or less. We will contact you via email with an acceptance or declination of the full application. All due dates are posted on the individual grant program pages.
The Good Food Policy Program is an invited grant program that does not have an LOI phase.
The amount of time necessary to complete the LOI and application forms will vary depending on the complexity of your project and how ready you are to apply. The following sample forms should help you determine what is needed for the process.
Please contact us with any further questions regarding these forms or any part of the application process.
We encourage you to apply for funding for the project or activity you are most passionate about and that will have the greatest impact. With that said, we do not have a policy against applying for more than one grant either across our program areas or within one specific program area.
If you are a current grant recipient and are interested in applying for new funding for another project idea, we encourage you to reach out to the appropriate Program Officer to discuss your application prior to submission.
While we do not set limitations on our grant requests, funding levels can range between $2,500 – $50,000.
We do not sponsor events or provide funding to individuals.
If you would like to discuss a specific idea or possible partnership with The Foundation, feel free to contact us.
If your organization is invited to submit an application, you may be contacted by LFF staff to arrange a site visit. LFF site visits may be conducted in person or remotely via video conference, and staff will do their best to give two week’s scheduling notice.
Site visits are a chance to discuss your application, your project, and your organization as a whole with LFF staff and trustees. We will not provide a formal agenda, but you should be prepared to answer questions and to ask questions of your own. We aim for the site visit to be a conversational learning experience for both LFF staff and your organization.
A post grant report is a requirement of nearly all grants. It is an opportunity to share what worked well, and what did not, and to what degree the project accomplished its goals. The date will vary, but the majority of reports are due 11 or 12 months from approval. This will be communicated to you when your grant is awarded.
We believe that it is important to measure the success of our grantmaking strategy. While we have our own internal strategy that we use to measure our own progress towards our programmatic goals, we allow our grantees to report metrics that are most relevant to their unique context.
We recognize that the measurement of success (and failure) is only valuable when it is done based on the specific and context-based parameters established by our grantees. We work in tandem with them to ensure that what is measured has meaning to both their work and our overall goals as a Foundation.This will allow evaluation flexibility while helping The Lumpkin Family Foundation learn about what Outcomes and Metrics are most useful to our grantees. Please contact staff with any questions about Outcomes and Metrics.
Your report template will be accessible through our Apply/Report here portal . Most post grant reports are similar to the following example for the Land, Health, Community program:
Please feel free to contact Foundation staff with any questions about your reporting date or details.
