Eligibility Criteria:
Applicants for the $100,000 Impact Grant or a Community Grant must meet the following criteria to be eligible for a grant from Impact100 Sonoma:
- Be tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code
- Be in operation for at least 36 months prior to applying for the Impact Grant and 24 months prior to applying for a Community Grant
- Provide services in the geographic area ranging from Kenwood to Schellville
- Provide services to benefit residents of Sonoma Valley
- Expend 100% of funds awarded by Impact100 Sonoma in Sonoma Valley
- Faith-based organizations are eligible to apply if the faith-based organization is part of a collaborative grant application. The faith-based organization may not be the lead agency or the fiscal agent. No inherently religious activities are allowed to be performed in the proposed project.
Grant Funds May be Used to Support:
- An existing program with specific program analysis data and outcomes
- The expansion of an existing program
- Launching a new program
- A new or existing collaborative effort between one or more agencies. This includes planning for collaborations.
Grant Funds May Not Be Used in These Ways:
- General operating expenses (Except Unrestricted Merit Impact Grant Effective 2017)
- Debt reduction or operational deficits
- Grants to individuals
- Private foundations
- Endowment funding
- Interim or bridge funding
- Partisan, legislative, or political activity
- Projects of religious organizations or bodies of worship
- Annual appeals or fundraising drives, activities, or events
- General capital campaigns unrelated to a specific project
Guidelines for All Applications:
- Proposals submitted by applicants as a collaborative[1] effort must complete the Collaborator and Partner Agreement Form, signed by each agency.
- Applicants noting the existence of project partners[2] must complete the Collaboration/Partnership Form, signed by each partner.
- Grant applications will be accepted from a nonprofit in two categories per grant cycle – one Impact Grant and one Community Grant (in either the Program category or Capital category)
- Organizations may appy for only one Community Grant – either Program or Capital.
- Organizations awarded the $100,000 Impact Grant may not apply for the $100,000 Impact Grant for the following 3 years.
- Organizations awarded Community Grants may not apply the following year. They can reapply the year after that.
- Nonprofits applying for the $100,000 Impact Grant as part of a Collaborative Project may not apply in the same grant cycle for the $100,000 Impact Grant as an individual organization. They can apply for a Community Grant in the same grant cycle.
- A collaborative group of nonprofits that applies for the $100,000 Impact Grant as a Collaborative Project, and are awarded the Impact Grant, will be eligible to apply for an Impact Grant in the next year’s grant cycle, either individually or if part of a different collaboration.
- Grant funds must be expended within 36 months of the grant award date for the $100,000 Impact Grant and 12 months for the Impact Finalist Grants and Community Grants.
- Technology – software and hardware – can be included in a proposal if it is integral to the proposed program or project.
- Capital[3] expenditures may not exceed 25% of an Impact Grant request or a Community Program Grant request. Community Grants applications with capital expenditures of more than 25% of the total budget are considered capital grants and should apply in the capital category.
- A nonprofit with a Fiscal Agent relationship agreement with another nonprofit that is also applying for a Community Grant is eligible to apply for a separate grant for their organization within the same grant cycle.
- A Fiscal Agent may not be used by a nonprofit when applying for the $100,000 Impact Grant unless the proposed project is a Collaborative Project involving two or more nonprofits.
A fiscal agent may be used by a nonprofit when applying for a Community Grant if the nonprofit is too small to have 501C3 status or if it is in the process of applying for 501C3 status but has not yet received it. The nonprofit must have been in operation for a minimum of two years before it is eligible to apply for a grant, even when it uses a fiscal agent. When filling out the application, it must provide the financial information for the nonprofit itself on the information form, and it must provide all of the financial documents for both itself and for the fiscal agent.
[1] Collaboration: Two or more non-profits share resources and have joint responsibility for managing and carrying out the proposed project. In such a case, one participating nonprofit needs to be identified as the Lead Agency, and is responsible for the financial management of Impact100 Sonoma grant funds.
[2] Partnership: For example, to carry out the proposed project the applicant relies on the clients or other resources from other organizations.
[3] A capital expenditure is an expenditure for an asset that the owner intends to hold and derive benefit from for more than one year, and that the organization depreciates or amortizes over the assets expected life.
Updated 10/5/2017
