FAQs

Ordinarily our staff contacts nonprofit organizations of interest for a preliminary conversation about their work and how a grantmaking partnership with the W. Clement & Jessie V. Stone Foundation might help to advance it. We then present the work to a program committee of our Board, and review the grantmaking possibilities with them. Once the program committee has expressed a strong interest in the work, we contact the organization and work with them on a proposal submission process. The Board of Trustees has the final decision on which organizations the Foundation will fund.

We do not accept unsolicited proposals.

The Foundation has two grant cycles per year—one in the spring around late April/early May, and one in the fall, usually in late October. When organizations are invited to submit a proposal to the Foundation, our staff makes arrangements with each of them individually to schedule a date for proposal submission that will work for both parties’ timelines.

Because our staff is in continual communication with potential grantees, the timing for receiving a grant can be anywhere from 6 months to a year from initial contact.

If the Foundation begins to accept unsolicited proposals, we will post that information to this website.

No. The Foundation only funds tax-exempt nonprofit organizations as described in the Internal Revenue Code Section 501 (c) (3). Please see our Resources page for links to other organizations that might be able to assist in your search for funding.

The Foundation concentrates its giving in Boston, New York, Chicago the San Francisco Bay Area, and Philadelphia. On occasion we have funded programs with a national focus or organizations outside these metropolitan areas because they are doing vital work that advances our mission.

The Foundation makes grant awards on a multi-year and on a yearly basis. We have a strong track record of renewing grantees, based on their ability to accomplish the work they set out to do and their ability to make program refinements, based on their own assessment of what is working well.

Yes, the Foundation provides general operating support to grantees. We recognize that general operating funds can be hard to raise, and that those funds are necessary to support core work of organizations.

Yes. Please review the list below before contacting us.

The Foundation typically does not fund:

• Direct support to individuals
• Endowment campaigns
• Fundraising events, such as dinners or lunches
• Capital campaigns
• Individual schools

We have a Trustee Designated Grant program which provides individual trustees with the opportunity to request a Foundation grant that is reflective of an individual Trustee’s own unique charitable interests. This comprises a small amount of our overall grantmaking budget. The Foundation and its trustees neither solicit nor accept applications for trustee discretionary grants.

The Foundation does not sell or distribute any of W. Clement Stone’s books. However, copies of his publications are readily available from bookstores and commercial web sites.