Dear Brooklyn Grant Seekers:

Brooklyn Community Foundation is making a major change to its grants application calendar, moving to one annual grant cycle beginning in January 2012. Our grants budget will remain steady, but awarding all grants during one annual cycle allows us to better shape a more cohesive and strategic grants program. It also ensures maximum fairness, as all applicants – new and returning alike – will be submitting their Letters of Inquiry (LOI) in the same pool.

Another significant change is that new grant awards cannot be used retroactively to pay for programs that have already happened; instead, they should support programs that are ongoing or about to be launched. Typically it takes six months from the time you apply until the time the grant is approved and paid. Under our new grants calendar, your proposal – if funded – is unlikely to be paid before mid-June 2012. Thus, projects approved in the January 2012 grants cycle will receive funding just prior to July 1, 2012, the start of the City's fiscal year. Many of you who get City funding will find this convenient for your program operations. For those of you who use a calendar year, we're also happy to have our June 2012 grant payment support work that began earlier in the year and will continue throughout 2012. However, our June 2012 payments should not be used to pay for work that has already been completed, or to help to close the books on an organization's fiscal year ending on June 30, 2012. Please keep this timing in mind as you prepare your January Letter of Inquiry.

If your organization is currently receiving support for a calendar 2012 project from the Brooklyn Community Foundation, you should wait until January 2013 to apply for calendar 2013 funding. If your organization applied for and received a 2011 grant, you can apply again in January 2012. In addition, any organization, whether it is new to us or has previously applied and been declined by us, is welcome to submit a LOI in January 2012.

To reconfirm what many of you already know, all organizations – even prior Brooklyn Community Foundation grantees – need to begin their funding request with a LOI. And with the increased numbers of requests we have received each year, we expect the upcoming grants cycle to be particularly competitive. Given this climate, no applicant should assume that new or renewed funding is guaranteed.

These changes are meant to simplify, not to confuse. If you have any questions or concerns about how to proceed, please feel free to contact program staffers Toya Williford at twilliford@bcfny.org or Stuart Post at spost@bcfny.org.

Thank you for continuing to Do Good Right Here in Brooklyn.

Sincerely,


Marilyn Gelber
President