Grantmaking
Guidelines
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Areas of Interest

Willard and Ruth’s personal philanthropic goals and interests guide The Foundation’s current Advisory Committee at every turn. As stewards of the couple’s enduring legacy, The Advisory Committee remains inspired by Willard and Ruth’s generosity, their esteemed values and their incredible foresight. We remain committed to honoring our founders’ philanthropic priorities and goals: to invest in science as a way to care for our planet and its most vulnerable inhabitants while lifting up marginalized members of our community and ensuring all children have access to a dynamic education.

Thus, all grantmaking remains focused on the following four areas:

  • Care and Stewardship of the Natural World
  • Medical and Social Services for Under-Served
  • Scientific Research and Exploration
  • Education

We specifically look for programs that demonstrate a superior level of integrity and transparency, and those that fall into more than one of The Foundation’s areas of interest.

Types of Grants

We consider requests for program support and expansion, challenge/matching grants, capacity building and general operating support. We do not support individuals, foreign organizations or lobbying efforts.

TIMELINES

If you are an existing grantee, you are invited to submit your letter of inquiry (“LOI”) in our Foundant system between the period of January 1, and March 15, using the information below.
  • By March 15, invited letter of inquiry (“LOI”) submissions in Foundant are due (and additional documents if requested).
  • By June 1, grantees will be notified if their request has been approved (many are in fact approved based only on LOI submissions), advancing in the process, or denied.
  • By October 15, grantees who were asked to submit a full proposal will be notified of the Foundation’s funding decisions.
  • By October 31, all grants will be paid.
If you have not received funding from the Eccles Foundation in the past, please email khernandez@whittiertrust.com before applying for funding.

 

To submit the application, please follow steps below:
  1. Login to the Whittier Trust – Grants Management website, using the credentials you previously established. If you do not remember this password, please click “forgot password”. If you’ve had staffing changes, please contact me directly so that we can establish a new login for your new staff member.
  2. On the left-hand side of the Home page, under “Requests”, click “Apply”. Type in the Access code: weccles18. Complete the application by only populating the required (*) fields. For this application, you will only need to upload your LOI. As soon as you’ve completed all applicable fields, please submit your application.
  3. If no other information or documentation is required from your organization, we will proceed with forwarding your application to the Advisory Committee for review at the September meeting and the decision will be communicated to you either by email or by phone in early October.

Please direct questions to:

Kristina Hernandez, Grants Manager
khernandez@whittiertrust.com
626.441.5188