The FHL Foundation board meets four times a year to consider proposals for trackable projects in four focus areas: Arts & Humanities (Fall), Education (Winter), Animal & Human Welfare (Spring), and the Environment (Summer). Our geographic reach is Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Grant awards are typically made in the range of $5,000 to $20,000. Click on the Grant Listing tab to get a sense for the types of grant awards we typically make. We use a database program for our Grant Proposal and Project Tracking process called Grant360. The best way to start the application process is to send us an email (click on the Contact tab) and tell us a little about your organization and the type of trackable project you have in mind. If we feel there is a fit between our two organizations we will setup an account in Grant360 that will allow you to login and view Grant Programs, submit an Organization Profile, and submit a proposal to the currently open Grant Program (if it fits with your focus area). Pleas be advised that we only make grant awards to organizations recognized as a non-profit 501(c)(3) by the IRS.

What do we mean by “trackable project?” Requests for general operations are requests to put money into a pot. Once money goes into a pot it is difficult to track exactly how a foundation's grant was spent. We only make grants for projects that can be tracked. In this way we hope that all grant dollars can be accounted for. Examples of a trackable project would be, delivering a certain number of books to kids, putting on a certain number of public lectures, or tagging a certain number of wildlife. The key here is the purpose of the grant can be tracked by a distinct metric like number of books, number of lectures, or number of tagging events. Does this mean that general operations grants are off the table? Not exactly. What we would ask you to do is to put what normally general operations covers—salaries, fixed costs, utilities, etc.—into a trackable unit. As an example, we recently made a grant for a project that would deliver learning kits. The grant was for $5,000. We asked the organization to tell us what the cost was to put together and distribute one learning kit. The cost was calculated to be $50 for each learning kit. The tracking parameter was then 100 kits delivered. In essence we ask organizations to unitize the purpose of their project. Another example. We made a grant to help an organization with their summer camp. Each summer a group of kids build a small wooden boat. This organization calculated that it cost $2,000 for each kit built, which included materials, rent on garage space, and a stipend for counselors. Our Foundation covered the cost of five kits.

I hope the above gives you a feel for our grant program and our four focus areas. Send us an email and let us know what you have in mind and we will go from there. Best of luck to you. Rick

Here are some general “deal breaker” guidelines:
  • No grants to individuals
  • Only grants to organizations recognized as a non-profit at the federal level (typically a 501(c)(3))
  • No grants to organizations operating under an umbrella group
  • No grants to organizations that have a 501(c)(3) pending
  • No grants to international organizations
  • Grants to college or university foundations are OK, however we request a 5% pass-through cap
  • We must have a copy of your IRS ruling letter, which can be sent to us as an email attachment as a PDF
  • No grants to organizations providing “therapy” without proper licensure, training, and clinical supervision. This one is close to my heart because I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC-retired). Our Foundation receives way too many requests from organizations who purport to provide mental health therapy in such areas as PTSD, trauma, addiction, domestic violence & abuse, grief & loss, and other similar areas. What we discover (to my utter amazement) is that these groups have no formal training, no licensed practitioners, and no clinical supervisors of any kind. As a retired LMHC, my code of ethics requires that I police the counseling profession and report any and all ethical violations. Providing therapy without proper licensure, training, and clinical supervision is an ethical violation and, yes, we have reported organizations to our state Counseling and Therapy Practice Board. All codes of ethics that I am familiar with ascribe to the idea of “do no harm.” If your organization is providing “therapy” without proper licensure, training, and clinical supervision, the potential to do harm is great. Our Foundation will not provide grant support to any group or organization who, in our opinion, is providing “therapy” without proper licensure, training, and clinical supervision. So if your organization or group truly provides therapy, please have the clinical supervisor register the organization in our database program Grant 360 making sure that he or she indicates his or her level of graduate degree (e.g., MA, MS, PsyD, PhD, etc.) and licensure (e.g., LPCC, LCSW, PMHN, MD, DO, etc.).
​General Operations, a follow-up. We believe that most if not all overhead—rent, utilities, salaries, etc.—should be covered by an annual fund or annual fundraising events. As examples, a local Children's Hospital holds an annual mud volleyball tournament, and a local Homeless Shelter sends out donation envelopes in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. For this reason we believe that our grant dollars should go for trackable projects that are designed to carry out the mission of the organization. We have no problem making grants that include costs directly related to the costs of a project. If a lecturer is brought in to give a lecture, or a trainer is brought in to put on a workshop, we have no problem with those costs if they are reasonable. These costs are project related and beyond general operations. There's an old saying in philanthropy: Never ask the director of development to raise his or her own salary. Covering general operations through an annual fund or annual events assures that the organization will stay afloat if certain funding sources (most notably government contracts) go away suddenly. Having an annual fund or annual events is just good business. It's something foundations look at as one measure of the longterm success of an organization. Foundations also look at annual funds and events as one measure of how well the local community knows about and supports the efforts of the organization. 
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