Apply for a Grant

Expressions of Interest (EOIs) for 2024 granting are closed.

EOIs submitted now until December 1, 2024 will be considered for our 2025 grant cycle.

If you're looking for information on how to apply for a grant, you've come to the right place.

The First West Foundation has a number of different endowment funds which grant to different communities and for varying projects. We don't want to waste your time in applying for a grant if your organization or project is not a good fit for our grants. Therefore, we ask that you fill out our Expression of Interest form which will give you an opportunity to give us a brief introduction to your organization and the funding need. If your project is a good fit, we'll invite you to apply for a grant.

Before completing the Expression of Interest, please look through the granting list of endowments and their corresponding funding focuses. If you think your funding need fits within the funding focus of one of our endowments, you can then complete the Expression of Interest.

Once you have submitted the Expression of Interest, Foundation staff will contact you to let you know whether or not your EOI qualifies for one of our grants. We may ask you for more information or simply put your organization on our watilist to apply for a grant. We accept Expressions of Interest throughout the year, please refer to the individual endowments for deadlines. Please note that the timeline to apply for a grant may be nearly a year away, depending on which endowment might fund your project. More information on the granting timelines are found on each of the endowment pages.

Grant Process Timeline

Once your organization is added to the waitlist to apply for a grant, you will receive the grant application via email inviting you to apply. Applications are sent approximately four weeks prior to the application deadline to charities on the waitlist. After the application deadline, the grants are evaluated, reviewed by our grants committee, and finally approved by the Foundation Board. Decisions on grant distributions are made approximately two months after the application deadline.

After Receiving a Grant

If your organization has received a grant, we require:

• Submission of a Completion Report when your project/program has ended
• Your organization to notify us if there are major changes to the original project plan for which you received funding and for you to obtain written approval from the Foundation to apply the grant funding in a different way than specified in the original grant application

Funding Restrictions

In general, the Foundation will not make grants for the following purposes:

• research, surveys or studies
• conferences
• general operating costs
• deficit or debt reduction
• retroactive expenses
• annual fund-raising drives
• to individuals
• to political organizations
• recreational team or club sponsorship

Complete the Expression of Interest Now