Hope For Memphis Fund
The Hope for Memphis Fund was established by the Hope to invest strategically in Christian organizations seeking City transformation: spiritually, educationally, economically, and relationally. It desires to fund ministries that seek to combine Christian faith and Christian action in furthering God's kingdom in our city. In order to receive a grant, an organization must combine evangelism and discipleship with social action.
The Fund makes grants or loans from the surplus and earnings of Hope and from donations made to the Fund by others. As a result of our continued growth and financial strength, all surplus funds earned from operations and fees from new donor advised funds are added to our Hope For Memphis Fund.
View the Grant History of the Hope For Memphis Fund
The areas of focus for this fund are (1) to empower and strengthen existing Christian ministries in Memphis by helping them be more effective and sustainable and (2) to promote and encourage servant leadership. Both of these areas are traditional areas of involvement for the Hope Foundation. Hope Consulting Services plays an important role in capacity building for existing ministries. Servant Leadership has been promoted and encouraged through our annual Servant Leader Banquet and periodic Half Time seminars.
NOTICE: GRANT REQUESTS ARE CURRENTLY CLOSED AS OF October 1st, 2008.
Download a copy of our grant request guidelines
Grant Request Guidelines
Mission Statement: The Hope for Memphis Fund’s mission is to invest strategically in Christian Organizations seeking City transformation: Spiritually, Educationally, Economically, and Relationally.
Geographic focus: Memphis Metro area
Types of funding: Our primary emphasis of funding for 2008 is to support development efforts to create more sustainable and effective ministries and leaders. Such efforts would include the following:
- Leadership training and development and leadership mentoring
- Long term business planning and strategic planning
- Development of ‘Best Management’ practices
- Board development
- Donor communication and development
- Creation of ‘Case Study’ reports on highly successful ministries.
- Development of benchmarks or measures of effectiveness
Staff additions to improve ministry effectiveness or sustainability, such as development staff, will also be considered. Grants for capital campaigns or to support ongoing operations will not be considered.
Nature of recipient: The Fund desires to make grants to ministries that seek to combine Christian faith and Christian action in furthering God's kingdom in our city. In order to receive a grant, an organization must combine evangelism and discipleship with social action.
The organization must be a 501c-3. Initially, our focus is on established organizations or a start-up which is affiliated with an established organization. Start ups not affiliated with existing organizations are less likely to be considered.
Type of Grants:
- Direct grants
- Loans (clear repayment / only special circumstances)
- Leveraging with matching grants
Grant Amounts: Grants will generally range between $3,000 and $100,000. Multi-year requests will be considered.
Procedures:
Grant requests should be no more than two pages in length and include:
- Description of Ministry & Mission Statement
- Population served
- Amount requested
- A clear and concise description of the request including the existing limitation on the ministry due to some constraint
- Intended measurable outcomes from the project or program including how the request will remove and diminish the constraint
- Expected time frame of intended outcomes
- Website address and complete contact information including e-mail address.
To the request, please attach list of Board members, evidence of 501c-3 status, most recent audited financial statement, and current operating budget. If applicable, also include proposals from service providers.
Grants are recommended and approved three times per year on or about January 25th, May 25th and September 25th. The deadlines for submission to be considered for these approval dates are November 15, March 15 and July 15, respectively. The Hope for Memphis Fund Committee is responsible for the recommendation of grants from the Fund. Such recommendations will be approved by the Board of Hope Christian Community Foundation.
In reviewing grant requests, we utilize the guidelines outline on this page describing Strategic Christian Giving.
