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Building an Inclusive Community Mini-grants

The Foundation’s past five previous rounds of “Love Your Community” mini-grants have celebrated outstanding projects like the Muskegon Street Performers, Roll on Muskegon community bike rides, MI Muskegon photography project, Movies on the Beach, a Lakewood Club community garden, the Real Food Cooking Club, and many more.

We are now announcing new mini-grants with a special focus – we’re looking for ideas that create projects, programs, or events that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) within the community. We will be awarding five (5) grants to projects that are welcoming, inclusive, create new opportunities for people to come together, make new friends, learn new things, create equitable spaces, or celebrate the rich diversity of our community.

The possibilities are endless! Winners will be determined based on votes received on the Foundation’s Facebook page.

WHO:
Any nonprofit organization, business or individual is eligible to apply. Only one application per nonprofit, business or individual, please!

WHAT:
Grants up to $500 will be awarded for projects that encourage people to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in any or all parts of Muskegon County. Submitted programs/projects must be for the benefit of Muskegon County citizens and not for personal or business benefit. Grant dollars awarded are to be used to complete the proposed project. This includes new programs or expansion of an already existing project.

HOW:
Email the following items to the Community Foundation (grants@muskegonfoundation.org) by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, February 1, 2019.

  • 2019 DEI Mini-Grant Application (Word doc) including maximum 300 character project description
  • A photo or illustration depicting your project (.jpg format)

All grant application entries become the property of the Community Foundation for Muskegon County and will be voted on by the public via the Foundation’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/cffmc).

The Community Foundation will post the project description and photo/illustration depicting each project. Each “like” received for that project will count as one (1) vote, so encourage your supporters to follow the Foundation and be sure to “like” your photo. The five projects with the most “likes” on the Foundation’s page (not on shared posts) will receive funding.

Talk about your project on your own Facebook page or other social media and be sure to use the hashtag #InclusionInAction and #LoveMuskegonCounty, and #HealingOurFuture in your posts!

Voting will begin on Thursday, February 7, 2019 and conclude on Thursday, February 14, 2019. Winning applicants will be asked to provide a more detailed one-page project description and project budget. Please note that the Foundation reserves the right not to publish applications that do not meet grant guidelines. As with all of our grants, decisions are subject to Foundation Board of Trustees’ approval.

Questions? Contact grants@muskegonfoundation.org or JacQuaye Payne, 231.332.4124.