Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
OVERVIEW: The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation funds education, the environment, civil society, and the Flint, Michigan area. Grants are available to organizations in the U.S. for all funding areas, and internationally through its Civil Society and Environment programs. Mott’s education funding covers primary, secondary and higher education efforts.
IP TAKE: The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is a major global funder, known for its long-term, steady commitment to it four core funding areas. Across its programs, Mott values the importance of civil society and creating a sense of community, “whether at the neighborhood level or as a global society.” As reported as Inside Philanthropy, Mott has been a leading and early funder of the community schools movement, addressing the racial wealth gap in the U.S., and supporting democracy and civil society in Ukraine.
Mott is an accessible funder, accepting letters of inquiry via an online form at any time. However, this funder specifies that funding for unsolicited proposals is limited. Mott mainly works with well-established nonprofits and NGOs in its areas of interest. This is not typically a funder for small or grassroots organizations, although grants to smaller, community-based organizations are sometimes made, particularly within Mott’s Flint and environment portfolios. Mott is very transparent about its past and current grantmaking activities, and it maintains a comprehensive, searchable grants database going back two decades.
PROFILE: The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation was founded in 1926 by Charles Stewart Mott, an engineer, entrepreneur and early director of the General Motors Company. Headquartered in Flint, Michigan, the foundation has offices in Troy, Michigan; London, England; and Johannesburg, South Africa, and works globally to “promote a just, equitable and sustainable society.” This foundation has five funding initiatives: Civil Society, Education, the Environment, and problem solving and community development for the greater Flint, Michigan area.
Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy
The Mott Foundation’s Civil Society program area works to “foster engaged, empowered and equitable communities throughout the world.” Related grantmaking focuses on local organizations that work at the grassroots level in order to bolster inclusion and equality. This program area offers two subprograms related to civics and democracy: Strengthening Civic Space and Enhancing Community Philanthropy. Mott is a hands-on funder that appreciates working closely with “grantees to strengthen the space for civic engagement, enhance local philanthropy and increase access to justice.”
The foundation’s Strengthening Civic Space subprogram is committed to “protecting, expanding and enhancing the environment for civic engagement.” Its awards focus on strengthening organizational infrastructure. Grantmaking strategies in this area center on research, advocacy, innovation, and outreach. Mott’s Enhancing Community Philanthropy subprogram supports developing “community foundations that foster just, equitable and sustainable societies.” The subprogram invests in inclusion and equity endeavors. It does so through a focus on both “encouraging expansion to new regions” and “strengthening existing community foundations,” as well as supporting “field-wide efforts to adopt the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a framework for developing community-level solutions to global challenges.” This subprogram’s grantmaking strategies rely on expansion, development, effectiveness, and leadership. Recent grantees include Support Foundation for Civil Society, Global Dialogue, and Institute for the Development of Social Investment.
Grants for Criminal Justice Reform
The foundation further supports civic work through its Increasing Access to Justice program, a subprogram of the Civil Society initiative. This program “promotes social equity in communities by increasing access to justice” and primarily operates in South Africa and Ukraine.
Its two-pronged approach involves development, expansion, networking, and learning.
Development and expansion grants support:
Organizations that “collaborate with community advice offices (CAOs) in South Africa to improve legal service delivery to vulnerable groups and strengthen advocacy efforts for the sector.”
National organizations in “selected African countries where there is compelling need and opportunity for development of access to justice initiatives.”
Organizations providing “capacity-building support to the formal network of community legal centers in Ukraine.”
Networking and learning grants support:
Networks that promote “learning and sharing within the African access to justice community.”
Research organizations that “collect and disseminate information on access to justice practices around the world.”
Recent grantees include South Africa’s Centre for Community Justice and Development, the Legal Aid Board of Sierra Leone, and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.
Grants for K-12 and Higher Education
The Mott Foundation’s K-12 funding prioritizes initiatives for students from low- and middle-income families. It runs four separate funding programs through its Education initiative.
Advancing Afterschool seeks to increase access to quality educational and extracurricular activities for students from low-income families or underserved communities.
Mott’s Graduating High School College and Career Ready initiative also prioritizes low-income students and invests in college readiness, career skills training, and financial literacy programs.
Through its Youth Engagement program, the foundation supports programs that help students to become and stay involved with their schools and communities, including entrepreneurship and mentoring programs.
Mott’s Special Initiatives subprogram works broadly to respond to “new strategies, unique opportunities and changing social, economic and political contexts.”
Past K-12 education grantees include the Afterschool Alliance, VentureLab, Youth Service America, and $14 million to Flint Community Schools.
Mott supports higher education across each of its initiatives. Its Education program prioritizes underserved K-12 populations, but also supports educational research and youth outreach programs at U.S. universities.
Its Civil Society program aims to “foster engaged, empowered and equitable communities throughout the world” and funds both civic education and research at colleges and universities in the U.S. and abroad.
In the area of Environment, Mott works globally to “protect communities and the ecosystems upon which they depend” and has partnered with research universities to this end.
And in Flint, the foundation has supported a community data project conducted by the University of Michigan.
Past grantees include New York University, Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa, and the Afterschool Youth Entrepreneurship Initiative at the University of Missouri.
Grants for College Readiness
Mott’s Graduating High School College and Career Ready program aims to “create a culture in which students have both the aspiration and ability to pursue college or career training after high school graduation.”
This includes advancing effective methods to help middle school and early high school students increase college and career readiness, expanding county or statewide initiatives to increase graduation rates, and postsecondary success and supporting best practices to build capacity for after-school programs focusing on college and career readiness approaches.
Past college readiness grantees include the National League of Cities Institute, which received funding for its Cities Building Bridges to Postsecondary Success programs, and Michigan College Access Network, which received funding for its program to improve postsecondary success outcomes across the state.
Grants for Community Development
The Mott Foundation primarily makes community development grants through its Flint, Michigan program area.
Grants for Meeting Evolving Community Needs providing general operating support and capacity-building funding for organizations providing basic needs and community development services in the community.
Grants for Revitalizing the Education Continuum are supporting multiple pilot programs in the Flint area, while working with the national Educare Learning Network to explore the potential broader impact of the program.
Grants for Arts & Culture primarily support the Flint Cultural Center, but also provide funding for smaller arts organizations in the area, such as museums, theaters, performing arts groups, youth outreach, and other arts-related groups.
Finally, grants for Community Vitality aim to boost the local economy by supporting neighborhood redevelopment and revitalization, job creation, vocational training, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and other economic improvement efforts.
Grants for Environment
The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation invests in conservation and sustainability through its Environment, and to a lesser extent, its Flint programs. Indeed, Mott has invested over $51 million to address the Flint water crisis. Mott’s environmental grantmaking is global, but the U.S. Great Lakes region is a key focus area.
In addition to its Water Conservation and Climate Change subprograms, the foundation also earmarks funding for environmental Special Initiatives.
Through this subprogram, it makes substantial one-time gifts for “opportunities to contribute to the resolution of significant environmental concerns that go beyond the stated objectives of the Environment Program’s major objectives.”
It has previously made grants to support the cleanup of the 2010 BP oil spill, water management efforts in the Great Lakes, and various public transit projects.
Grants for Freshwater Conservation
The Mott Foundation’s Water Conservation subprogram works to “ensure long-term conservation of freshwater ecosystems by strengthening the environmental community and informing the development of water policy.”
The freshwater program supports capacity building, education, policy work, and projects directly working towards water conservation. While Mott has expanded its water conservation outreach across the U.S., it emphasizes grantmaking to the Great Lakes region.
Candidates may submit proposals and formal application packets at any time throughout the year.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
Mott’s Advancing Climate Change Solutions subprogram has evolved over time and now prioritizes renewable energies.
In particular, the subprogram invests in rural areas of vulnerable, developing countries that are most impacted by the high carbon footprint of richer nations.
Grants through this subprogram support national and international NGOs that aim to create and nurture “global and regional initiatives that help entrepreneurs address finance and policy barriers that prevent access to clean energy,” as well as “national and regional organizations that provide technical assistance and networking opportunities to communities in the Amazon and Sub-Saharan Africa.”
In addition, Mott conducts clean energy work through its Transforming Development Finance subprogram, which works to “shape international investment policies for energy and infrastructure projects in ways that protect people and the environment in developing nations.”
This subsection of climate change giving aims to “improve transparency, accountability, and social and environmental standards at the international finance institutions that fund major energy and infrastructure projects on shaping international investment and trade policies and practices that ultimately support sustainable, environmentally-responsible development.”
Sustainable regional development grants tend to prioritize Brazil and China. Beyond traditional finance work, this subprogram also supports regional and global clean energy investments, among other concerns.
Important Grant Details:
The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation made over $190 million in grants in a recent year. Grants range from $10,000 to several million, with an average grant size of about $200,000.
Grantmaking is global in scope, but most programs maintain specific geographic areas of focus. Mott’s grantees tend to be large nonprofits and NGOs with strong reputations. The foundation offers a searchable grants database with information on grants dating as far back as 1977.
The Mott Foundation primarily funds groups operating in the United States, and sometimes internationally.
Mott accepts letters of inquiry via an online form, but notes that funding for unsolicited proposals is limited. Applicants can expect to hear back from the foundation within 90 days of submission.
The Mott Foundation does not make grants to individuals.
Outside of Flint, Michigan, the foundation does not fund capital development, research, or endowments.
General inquiries may be made via the foundation’s contact page.
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