Jewish Women’s Fund Grants Benefiting Women and Girls

Background and Purpose:

The San Francisco Jewish Women’s Fund (SFJWF) strives to strengthen the Jewish community by helping women and girls in the Jewish community flourish. The core values that we seek to both exercise within our Fund and support externally are: Integrity, Best Efforts, Creativity and Agility, Entrepreneurial Attitude / Initiative, Equality of Opportunity and Access, Growth Mindset, Vision, Empathy and Humility.

Proposal Guidelines:

• Grants: We grant primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area but also consider national organizations seeking to bring programming to the Bay Area.
   
• Focus: The SFJWF welcomes proposals in the following topic areas: health and wellbeing; leadership development and economic security benefiting women and girls in the Jewish community. Grants are offered for program support and capacity building to organizations inspired by Jewish values. The age demographic of the beneficiaries is open.
   
• Applicants are invited to apply for either one-year grants between $10,000 - $75,000 or two-year grants between $10,000 - $50,000 for each year.
  • If applying for a two-year grant, you will need to complete the budget request for two-years. Projects that are ongoing may consider the two-year option. Projects that are finite and can be completed in approximately one year should only apply for one-year grants.
  • The committee may determine to only fund one year of a two-year application.
  • The committee prefers to not be the sole funder of a program and for the organization to demonstrate other sources of grants or revenue.
  • The committee may partially fund an application, pending confirmation from the grantee that they can secure the balance in funds from other sources.

Eligibility and Criteria:

• Applicants—or their fiscal sponsors—must be tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and be based in the United States. Applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss this opportunity with their Federation Program Officer Liaison (POL) or Danielle Meshorer, the Director of the San Francisco Jewish Women’s Fund if you are not assigned a POL before applying.
   
• The SFJWF will NOT fund capital campaigns, endowments, or partisan political activities.
   
• Funding both social change or social change with a service component
  • The SFJWF is open to a mixed portfolio of proposals seeking to address both social change focused on root causes of problems and proposals that have a direct service component. Social change philanthropy works to improve the conditions that lead to inequality and brings about long-term change, while funding of social services seeks to ameliorate the symptoms of societal problems. While we believe both strategies are necessary and valid, we will favor proposals that seek to address root causes or have a combined approach. When we say social change, here are some of the indicators we look for: shifts in definition, shifts in behavior, shifts in engagement, and shifts in policies. See the attached document for complete definitions.
     
• What is a gender sensitive program?
  • Gender-sensitive programs build on the needs, strengths, perspectives, and experiences of women and girls. They recognize that the needs of females may differ from those of males and pay deliberate attention to gender as an important component of diversity when creating, implementing, and evaluating programs. Gender-sensitive programs demonstrate an understanding of—and ability to meet—girls’ and women’s needs. Gender-sensitive programs can occur in both gender-specific (girls/women only) and coeducational environments.
     
• Suggested success measures:
  • The SFJWF is interested in grantees developing success measurement tools and common indicators to track your progress in social change or quality of direct services provided. For direct services, we would want to know the numbers of people impacted by the service and how it will serve as a stepping stone towards meeting underlying root causes of the problem you are trying to solve for. For social change strategies, please refer to the indicators of social change chart to think about how you will demonstrate and measure impact and success.

Additional Criteria:

• Evidence of need, demand, or “proof of concept” (for example: successful test or prototype, market research, or success in different community);
• Exit plan to leverage other funding for proposed program;
• Partnerships and connections to other programs and resources working in your field;
• Strong leadership and financial stability.

Application Process:

• This is a two-stage grant proposal process, with a brief online Letter of Inquiry (LOI), followed by a full proposal for invited applicants.
• Access LOI Application Form.

Timeline:
 

If you have any technical questions about the application form, please contact Federation Grant Support or call at 415.512.6275.