Mertz Gilmore Foundation
IP TAKE: Grantseekers should read over the Mertz Gilmore website carefully. Each grantmaking program services a different geographic region, and hasty applicants risk wasting both their and the foundation’s time.
Unfortunately, this foundation’s funding conducted at the national level is not accessible, but its local funding, focused on New York City, is. This is common for a family foundation, so don’t hesitate to contact this approachable funder to learn more about how the foundation’s giving guidelines may be evolving.
PROFILE: Established in 1959, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation is a family foundation committed to improving the quality of life in foundation home New York City. It seeks to “lift up the voices of marginalized people and their allies in seeking racial, economic, environmental, and gender justice as crucial components of maintaining vibrant communities and a sustainable environment.” Joyce Mertz and her parents, LuEsther and Harold established the Mertz Foundation in 1959, and it was later renamed to the Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and is now known as the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. The Mertz family founded Publishers Clearing House, which grew from just a few mass mailings to become a marketing and sweepstakes legend. The foundation invests in Climate Change Solutions, Democratic Values, NYC Communities, and NYC Dance.
Grants for Climate Change and Clean Energy
The Mertz Gilmore Foundation conducts grantmaking for climate change issues through its Climate Change Solutions program, launched in 2007. Since 1984, the foundation has funded climate change issues and remained an active member of the U.S. Climate and Energy Funders Group. The program is designed to provide investments in sustainable policies and practices in order to trigger significant reductions in global warming pollution. The foundation works to build momentum for the climate change movement through education and advocacy, engaging grassroots constituencies. It invests in studying climate change, promoting climate-friendly energy usage, and developing renewable energy sources across the U.S.; however, it prioritizes climate change grantmaking in the Southeast, because the region is on “the frontlines of the climate crisis, with communities experiencing the inequitable impacts of heat waves, high electricity bills, hurricanes, sea level rise, and fossil fuel industries.”
Past grantees include the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Alliance for a Greater New York among many others. It funds both small and large organizations at various levels.
Grants for Civic Engagement and Democracy
Mertz Gilmore’s Democratic Values program makes grants that are rooted in the foundation’s “vision of a fair, inclusive, and equitable people-centered political system that fulfills the promise of a representative democracy.” It focuses on efforts to reduce the role and influence of money in politics, increase civic participation and protect voting rights, decrease corporate and foreign influence in elections, preserve and enforce strong ethics and conflict of interest rules, promote government transparency, and stop abuses of power. Grants from this program also prioritize programs and organizations “led by and serving people of color” that work to increase democracy reform and civic participation at the state and local level.
Past democracy grantees include Every Voice Center, Proteus Fund, Center for Responsive Politics, and National Institute on Money in State Politics.
Grants for Work and Economic Opportunity
The New York Communities program prioritizes grassroots organizations in New York City’s most underserved areas. These grants have provided support to community-based organizations working on multiple fronts, provide technical assistance, and support collaborative campaigns. However, the foundation isn’t currently accepting new inquiries for groups that address multiple issues or partner with other nonprofits or city agencies. The foundation accepts inquiries for technical assistance and a limited number of collaborative campaigns that can reach their goals within one to two years. Technical assistance generally comes in the form of law, planning, analysis, and advocacy assistance.
Past community grants include the Fifth Avenue Committee, Make the Road New York, and the Pratt Center for Community Development.
Grants for Dance
The New York Dance program aims to promote a diversity of performance styles, venues and media in New York’s dance scene. The foundation prioritizes organizations and programs that use dance as a means of exploring and addressing social issues, especially ones that draw in diverse artists and audiences. Joyce Mertz Gilmore was passionate about dance, so the staff and board continues to provide artists with technical and promotional support by commissioning pieces, staging works in progress, mounting full performance seasons, and funding outreach programs. Contemporary dance groups in the five boroughs are considered for grants.
Mertz Gilmore dance grants most frequently come in the form of general operating support for presenters of small to midsize dance companies in the city. On a rarer basis, the foundation considers proposals for advocacy and support services projects to advance the dance field by improving conditions for individual dance artists.
Past dance grantees include the Danspace Project, Jacob’s Pillow Dance, and Aaron Davis Hall (Harlem Stage).
Important Grant Details:
Mertz Gilmore’s grants range from just a few thousand up to $500,000, with an average grant size of about $50,000. The Climate Change and Democratic Values programs accept proposals by invitation only, but both New York programs review submissions on a rolling basis via the foundation’s online portal (which remains invisible until the call for applications opens). View complete grantmaking guidelines here.
PEOPLE:
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