Cycle 2 Responsive Grant Information Session

Hi everyone. Welcome to our 2026 responsive grant process community information session. I'm Andrea Figoa and I'm the director of youth success with the San Antonio Area Foundation. Here are members of our team and you will find out later on in the slideshow who to reach out to for your responsive grant needs. Okay, so just a little bit about us before we begin. This is our mission and our vision and the core values on the right hand side of the screen are the values that guide our work with our partners and one another. A little bit about our foundation and the grants and the dollars that we give out to community. As you can see on the left hand side at the bottom it says 8% responsive. That is the broken up uh dollar amount or dollar percentage of our responsive grants according to the whole amount that we have um in the organization. Our largest piece of the pie by far is 54% and those are our donor advised funds. We also have 11% scholarships and just to note we are the largest scholarship distributor of in our region. We also have 9% designated funds which are funds that usually are without a grant process but they are for one agency. And then we have supporting orgs where we manage the financial and administrative back of the house for uh organizations in San Antonio. Okay, so we're on to our grant making approach. When we trust each other, we work together in a more meaningful way. And the way that we do that is through trustbased philanthropy. Trustbased philanthropy has six values. One, we work for systemic equity. So, we recognize the racial, economic, and political inequities in which we operate and take the anti-racist anti-racist approach to change practices and behavior that perpetuate harm. We redistribute power. That means we're willing to share power with grantee partners and community members who are closer to the issues than we seek to address. We center relationships. We prioritize healthy, open, and honest conversations and relationships that can help us navigate the complexity of our work and our world. We partner in the spirit of service. We are a supporter and a collaborator rather than dictate what is needed. We lead with trust, respect, and humility and accountability. Our work will only be successful if we hold ourselves accountable to those who we seek to support. We embrace learning as an organization. We can only advance our impact if we remain open to learning and as we go embrace the opportunities for growth and evolution along the way. So how do we do this? Well, let's look at transparency and clarity. So we offer these sessions uh to our to inform our potential partners on our grant processes. We also offer one-on-one support with our program officers that we'll talk a little bit about later. And we're always in the process of continuous improvement. And we strive to make our grant applications more streamlined for all of you. We value collaboration and know that we can't do our work without you. Responsiveness. We know your time is precious and we try to be as responsive as possible when you reach out. If we miss a message, please reach out again, especially during grant time. We may miss one or two and may need a nudge. Stewardship. We're grateful for our donors and as such hold a great responsibility to be ethical with our distributions in community. Okay. So, our responsive grants, we're empowering organizations to meet their mission. As I mentioned before in this presentation, uh we are founded on trustbased philanthropy. So let's look at this equity. What does that mean to us? Equity as far as the area foundation, we define it as a lack of disparity in life outcomes among groups of classified by identity such as race, gender, ethnicity, age, physical ability, sexual orientation, etc. And we believe that equity is achieved when you, who you are or where you are from no longer predict your life outcomes. So let's talk a little bit about some of our equitable grant processes. For example, organizations are placed in categories by budget by budget size. A small organization will never be compared to a large organization. Targeted. We want to know who you are serving. Remember our vision is to close opportunity gaps for those who need it most. General operating. You are the experts in your work and as such you know where the money is needed in your organization. You are not applying for a specific program. Community input. Our final grant decisions are made by our community advisory committee members. These are folks from all across San Antonio and the region. They have applied and been selected. They are a mix of age, race, ethnicity, and expertise. A little bit about our eligibility. This is what it takes for you to be able to apply. So, organizations must be a 501c3 and have a minimum of one year in operation by the application deadline. Nonprofit work must take place in one of our eight service area counties and you must align with our vision and the fund purpose. >> Hello, my name is Julio Lopez and I'm the program officer of youth success. So, our responsive grant is a general operating grant. So, this grant isn't tied to a specific program or event. Really consider the organization as a whole. What's new this year is that our responsive grant, it will be a two-year grant term. Now, there will be two different cycles for our responsive grants. In the first cycle, which opened on January 20th, we have cultural vibrancy and youth success. Cycle two for successful aging and livable and resilient communities will open up at the end of April. Next, I'm going to talk a little bit about the application evaluation and some of the different components to expect. The application asks for information that helps describe the strength of the organization and includes a section to provide an organization description and background. Other questions ask for information about senior staff and board that help us understand the experience and commitment of the individuals leading the organization. So, when you're thinking about community impact, really consider the vision of the organization's role in making a difference. Speak to the unique or important role of the organization and its place in the wider ecosystem. Speak to the goals, metrics, outcomes of the organization's programs and service. We also want to understand your organization's approach and commitment to equity. Really highlight the organization's commitment to closing opportunity gaps for those who need it most. Remember, a big part of San Antonio Area Foundation's vision is closing opportunity gaps. As I mentioned, there will be questions about the board and staff to help us understand the strength of the organization. Show how the organization's board and staff are involved in the sustainability of the organization. Consider the strategic plan of the organization and how well the work that is being done aligns with the organization's mission. Finally, we look at the financial health of the organization to determine if the organization is in reasonable financial condition given its size and history. So, you'll have to provide a three-year financial summary on a specific form that is linked to the application. There will also be a budget narrative section to help give context to the financials. Hello, this is Gavin Nichols, program officer for successful aging and Jesus Garcia Gonzalez and I are sharing program officer for cultural vibrancy this year. As part of our financial strength, we ask you to fill out a financial summary form. You can download it from the application and we do ask that you use this specific form. The way this works is you will give us your budgeted revenues and finances for the current fiscal year. For most of us that is going to be 2026. And then we want to see the actual revenues and expenses from the previous two fiscal years. And for most of us that will be 2025 and 2024. So whatever form that your budget is in, we ask that you translate it to this financial summary form for us. And that way we have an even way of looking at uh the financial information across all the organizations. As Julio mentioned, we ask for some additional financial information. If you have an audit, you can include your most recently completed audit. Many organizations don't have audits are not big enough and the audits are expensive. So for those, we ask you to give us your balance sheet and your income statement. You'll have to combine those two documents into one PDF to upload it. Uh it can be in any format you have. If you have QuickBooks and can generate the reports out of QuickBooks, that's fine. If you have an Excel spreadsheet, you can export that. But whatever format you have it in, we'll look at your balance sheet and your income statement, which is also known as the statement of revenues and expenses. That's the financial information we ask for. And it's important because we are investing our donor's funds in the community. And like any good steward of those funds, we want to make sure we're making a sound investment. So we're not looking for perfection. We're looking for reasonable financial uh st standing. These are the things that when we are evaluating applications that we do not score. We do not score overhead amount. We do not score on the length of the application. More words is not always better. and you just want to be able to u provide the narratives in a way that is clear and understandable, but you don't have to go to great length. We do not score staff salaries. We do not score on grammar or spelling of your narrative. We do not score on the primary language or writing style. We understand that people have all different kinds of abilities when it comes to writing and especially in writing in English if English is not your primary language. So don't worry about that. We're not scoring on that. And we do not score on previous grant performance. We try to look at this year's grant application on its own and we make our evaluations based on that. The things that are not eligible for funding from us are endowments. We don't want to fund for you to build an endowment. We do not fund capital campaigns. Those are handled in separate processes. We do not fund programs and services focused on religious worship or religious instruction. But if you have a religiousbased uh organization, that's fine as long as you are serving the community and serving anyone in the community, not just people that are part of your congregation or uh part of your uh practice your religion. We do not fund scholarships to individuals for colleges, universities or trade schools because we have a separate scholarship operation at the area foundation. We do not fund K through 12 inschool education and we do not fund political activities or lobbying efforts that are attended to influence legislation. Other than that, our grants are unrestricted and that you can use them for operating expenses or program expenses. These are the funding priorities that were established by our different fund holders and that are providing the funding for these responsive grants. These are very broad and uh as long as you can make a connection to one or more of these funding priorities uh we are u your grant application will uh fit our criteria. These cover arts, libraries or museums, expenses related to higher education, not the cost of the education, but other expenses related to it. Mental health services, the prevention or treatment of illnesses, support for people with disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, support for older adults, support for child abuse prevention and mitigation, children and youth development, public parks, public radio, andor public television. If you have a question about the work of your organization and how it fits one of these funding priorities, please contact Jesus Julio or myself and we'll discuss it with you a little bit deeper into successful aging and livable and resilient communities and what those impact areas include. at the San Antonio Area Foundation for successful aging. We're looking for organizations that uh support access to affordable, accessible housing for older adults. Also, modifications that enable older adults to age in place. We look for transportation options that connect older adults to health care, other activities that they need. We look for organizations that provide meaningful social connections through their programming and the opportunity for older adults to socialize and also providing support for caregivers and the people who support older adults. All of these things are part of what we consider successful aging. in the livable and resilient communities impact area. Again, we're looking for organizations that provide programs that address safe and secure living support that may u address different aspects of financial counseling, workforce development, access to services, organizations and programs that address entrepreneurship and innovation in the community. programs that address health and wellness for the community. People of all ages, including uh blindness, other sensory conditions, catastrophic and and uh longterm diseases, and other illnesses, anything in the community health and wellness arena. We look at programs that address family and safety such as child abuse, domestic violence, how to prevent and mitigate those things. Resources that exists in the community such as libraries and hubs for learning and connection. And lastly, public spaces and media. So public media and also parks and the places where the community can come together and thrive for all of these impact areas and livable and resilient communities and successful aging. If you have questions about how your organization fits into that impact area, please contact me, Gavin Nichols, or Jesus Garcia Gonzalez. And our contact information is at the end of the presentation. The way we make our grants is we make them by budget size and the grant amount is based on the size of the budget. Although you see that grant amounts are greater for for bigger organizations, the grant amount is actually a smaller portion of your overall budget. So for those organizations with a annual budget of less than 40,000 that is a grant award of $4,000 per year for two years a total of 8,000 for 40,000 to 75,000 that's a grand award of 8,000 per year for two years and so on. When we evaluate applications and make the grant decisions, we make them within each budget size so that organizations of a smaller size are not competing with the largest organizations who have more resources for development and grant writing. In that way, we're assuring that we practice equity by making sure that organizations of all sizes are awarded grants. And we look at these uh your budget in terms of the previous fiscal year total expenses not including inind expenses or capital expenses. So in your financial summary that we talked about a few minutes ago, you can include inind expenses and revenues and you can include capital revenues and expenses, but we will not use those when we consider your budget size. Here are some helpful reminders. The application deadline is Friday, May 29th. You will have until 400 p.m. on the application day to reach out to us with any questions about your application or if you require any kind of technical assistance. However, you have until 11:59 p.m. to submit your application. We're also offering grant writing support for organizations whose budget falls under 75,000. And in the next slide, you'll learn who to contact about this service. This grant consulting is is provided by Cadence Corbin who is a previous staff member at the area foundation and understands our grant processes very well. And these are uh again for organizations with budgets under $75,000. If your organization has a budget of over $75,000, please contact your program officer and we're happy to work with you, but we won't provide that uh grant writing support that Cadence will in order to access this service. Please contact me, Gavin Nichols, at my email address, and I will make the connection with Cadence Corbin after we confirm that your organization is eligible for that service. I want to make a point that the work that you do with Cadence is work that's going to help you write a better application. She does not share u the work that she does with you with us. we do not use that um work that you do with Cadence as part of our evaluation. So, please don't feel that you're at risk if you seek help because um she's going to be very confidential about the work she provides and uh you can continue to work with Jesus, Julio, or me with other questions you have about your application. Here's our timeline for both cycles. Uh the application is open now. It opened on January 20th and that deadline as I said will be Friday, February 20th. We'll go into our evaluation process and grants will be awarded in June and then the second year grant payment will be in June of next year. In cycle two, that application will open on April 27th with a deadline of May 29th and awards will be made in September. These are for organizations that will apply in our livable and resilient communities and successful aging impact areas. >> Should you need any kind of assistance with your application, please feel free to reach out to us directly. For technical support, reach out to Katherine Garcia. For questions related to livable and resilient communities, reach out to Jesus Garcia Gonzalez. For questions related to successful aging, please reach out to Gavin Nichols. If you have any questions regarding the financial documents, the uploads, the financial summary form, or budget narrative, please reach out to Andrea Figueroa. Just a reminder to everybody that we do have a membership program at the San Antonio Area Foundation and membership benefits currently include facility usage, resource room, training and professional development discounts, capacity building resources, special convenings, and access to national experts. We are currently reimagining our membership program. So, we just want you all to think about this as well. We have complimentary membersonly learning events, pro-rated plans with no need to renew until January 2027, 25% discounts on all one-day and individual seminars. We currently also have access to board effect for nonprofits with an operating budget of 5 million or less. You have you will have the opportunity to take the IAT nonprofit organizational assessment and membership recognition on our website in a social media post. We are still reimagining our membership program. So, please stay tuned. Thank you all so much for your interest in our responsive process. Please remember to contact any of your program officers for additional assistance. Thank you and goodbye.