Grant Opportunities

Our Mission, Vision, and Values drive our actions

Our Mission

To bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.

Our Vision

To make Santa Cruz County thrive for all who call it home, now and in the future.

Our Values

Accelerating Solutions. Building Trust. Advancing Opportunities.

Our Grantmaking Overview

Our Grantmaking is guided by a set of eight principles we apply in awarding funds. Our approach is to provide flexible funding to organizations addressing pressing local issues and creating lasting positive impact. We prefer making grants to support the general operations of nonprofits. We continue to work with leaders of color to make sure that our grant funds are addressing historic and current inequities.

Community Grants Program

This May we awarded $2.1 million through our Community Grants cycle. The majority of available funds were restricted to benefiting children and seniors and were focused on education including in the arts and environment, end-of-life care, historic preservation, and human services. Information about the 2027 grant cycle will be available next February.

We continue to offer flexible grants that let awardees apply funds where most needed as they address pressing challenges and help make Santa Cruz County a place where all can thrive. Invitations to participate in this program cycle were sent out to this year’s invitees.

Our Priorities

Our Community Grants are made from endowed funds that have been given to the Foundation over four decades. This year, those funds will support:

• 33% for Seniors, End-of-Life Care & Historic Preservation
• 32% for Youth & Education
• 13% for Environment
• 7% for Women & Girls initiatives
• 6% for Human Services
• 3% for Arts, Culture & History
• 2% for LGBTQ+ specific causes
• 2% for Health
• 2% Community Development

When we consider Community Grant proposals, we look at factors including alignment with our funding areas (above), the fit our funding would have in the financial picture, the organization's ability to produce compelling outcomes, and how they advance equity in Santa Cruz County, among other things.

Separate from our Community Grants process, we work actively to bridge donors’ interests and local nonprofits’ work to address our county’s needs. To stay accessible year-round and help make everyone’s work efficient, we offer a tool to share a profile of your organization’s impact with us and our donors.

Completing an Impact Profile is a chance to answer the questions our donors are most curious to learn. Your organization must be based in Santa Cruz County and have a minimum of one full year of demonstrated programmatic impact.

To create an Impact Profile for your organization, start by downloading the Impact Profile instructions and optional worksheet. When ready, fill out the Impact Profile Form located in our grants portal by following the directions on the instructional worksheet. Your responses will be collected in our online Impact Profile form and made available to donors as they consider grants from their donor-advised fund. We accept them on a rolling basis.

Click the link to view our Impact Profile FAQs.

For Prevention, Early Intervention, Harm Reduction and Treatment of Opioid Related Harm

The County of Santa Cruz Health Services Agency Behavioral Health Division contracted with Community Foundation Santa Cruz County to make grants for the prevention, early intervention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery of opioid related disorders and harm. Another $810,000 was distributed this spring and grantees will have a grant performance period of up to 2 years to spend the grant funds. Learn more about our recent awardees here.

Learn more about our recent grantmaking:

• Rise Together
  
• Equal Access
• Fire Response Fund