Looking for a specific grant?
Page Tools
Special Initiatives
This program area seeks to sustain promising practices and promote innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to reduce persistent poverty.
Funding is made under two objectives.
Funding priorities for Transitions
Grantmaking under this objective has continued to develop and grow the micro-enterprise field in the U.S. Through the years, grantmaking has supported the start-up and expansion of the field’s earliest practitioners and innovators; funded research and data collection that documented the potential of micro-enterprise development as an anti-poverty strategy; and helped build a network of key intermediaries to build awareness, share best practices and advance policies to help expand and strengthen the field. As a result, the number of individuals served by the micro-enterprise industry continues to increase.
We seek policies and practices that strengthen micro-enterprise in the U.S. in order to maximize its potential as a means for low-income entrepreneurs to escape from poverty. We are making grants:
- Aimed at improving micro-enterprise practice that assists low-income entrepreneurs in developing viable businesses capable of increasing their household incomes above the poverty level.
- That assist effective programs in becoming self-sustaining.
Click here to view the 10 most recent grants for this program area.
Funding priorities for Exploratory and Special Projects
Grantmaking under this objective provides us with the flexibility to pursue a unique initiative, respond to critical needs (such as Hurricane Katrina), bring national expertise to address local problems or support projects that cut across one or more poverty issues. (Funding is minimal because of budget restraints.)
We seek flexibility to identify critical issues, seize special opportunities, research issues to determine future program directions and promote crosscutting projects. We are making grants:
- To support projects that cut across one or more poverty issues.
- For projects that connect national best-practices with grantees in Flint and Genesee County.
- That focus on a specific, time-sensitive issue.
Click here to view the 10 most recent grants for this program area.