Grantmaking Guidelines

Established in 2000, The Farese Family Foundation supports public charities in San Francisco and Marin counties. Believing that education can be an important leveler in our society, the Foundation’s interests are:

• Innovation and reform in public education serving low-income students: programs for adults that develop school leadership and management skills, and curriculum development;
• Literacy Education and Enrichment: Programs that have an emphasis on literacy (especially early literacy), that foster creative writing, are responding carefully to the needs in their communities, and have strong leadership.

The Foundation prefers to receive requests for specific programs and projects or general operating funds. The Foundation does not support religious entities, medical research, individuals, endowments, or annual appeals.

Most grants range from $10,000 – $50,000 for one year, and the Foundation prefers that three years elapse between grants to any given organization. The board holds two distribution meetings per year, and all requests are answered with a written notice within a reasonable period of time.

Proposals for the November meeting will be accepted until noon on August 15, 2008.

Application Procedures
revised 05/30/08

The Farese Family Foundation does not have an application form.

Submit by email as much as possible (if your organization does not have the ability to send your letterhead, an audit, or the IRS 501(c)(3) letter by email, you may send them by U.S. Mail):

Please send a cover letter on your organization’s letterhead that contains the amount of your grant request and a summary of key information including: the organization’s mission and goals, what the grant would accomplish, and how the project fits within the mission of the Foundation. This statement should be no longer than 200 words.

Please send us a proposal with the following information in a reasonable font size, which when printed out is no longer than 3 pages. Also, remember to put a header on each page which identifies your organization.

1. Concise description of the organization including history, mission and type(s) of programs and/or services provided.

2. Concise description of the project (if applicable) including purpose, goals/objectives and timeline.

In addition, please send the following items which are not part of the 3 page maximum:

3. Financial statement showing actual revenue and expenses for the agency’s most recently completed fiscal year. The document that contains this information that is the easiest for you to provide may be your agency’s audit.

4. Project budget (if applicable) detailing all proposed expenditures, and projected sources of funding.

5. A list of other funders of the organization.

6. A list of the members of the board of directors, if it doesn’t already appear in your other materials (such as on your letterhead).

7. Short descriptions of the qualifications of key personnel.

8. Copy of the agency’s IRS 501(c)(3) tax-exempt determination letter.

Proposals should be sent to Mary Gregory at the Foundation office: mgregory@pfs-llc.net.

For environmental and economic reasons, please do not use binders, folders or other binding for proposals, audits or supporting attachments, and please do not send audio-visual materials unless requested. Thank you.

Address

THE FARESE FAMILY FOUNDATION
Attn: Mary Gregory (mgregory@pfs-llc.net)
1660 Bush Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, California 94109
(415) 561-6540 x 204
(415) 561-6477 (FAX)
www.pfs-llc.net