Preguntas frecuentes sobre subvenciones

Through our Community Grants, The Denver Foundation funds organizations that serve residents of the Metro Denver area — Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, and Jefferson counties. Field of Interest Funds, Donor-Advised Funds, and other Special funds are not limited to Metro Denver. 

We will consider requests from organizations based outside of Metro Denver as long as the program or project serves residents in one or several of the seven counties listed above.

If your organization provides services statewide or nationally, your proposal must address how the requested funding will be limited to the seven counties listed above.

For information on grant application deadlines, please visit our Funding Opportunities page.

Yes, The Denver Foundation prefers grant requests for general operating. In some cases, such as a national 501(c)(3) with a program in the Metro Denver area or a nonprofit that has an outreach program that fits our priorities, program requests may make more sense. If you’re not sure what to request, we strongly encourage you to give us a call!

We have been tracking this for several years, and there is no way to predict the number that will be received, nor is there a “low” or “high” deadline.

For more information or to schedule a conversation with a member of The Denver Foundation staff, please fill out our contact form, email grants@denverfoundation.org, or call us at 303-300-1790 and ask to speak to a member of the Impact Group about grant applications. The foundation’s business hours are 8:30 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Friday.

We are always happy to respond to your questions. However, be aware that we receive a large volume of calls in the two weeks prior to the grant deadlines, and may take more time to respond to requests at those busy times of the year.

No. We require that applications be complete and submitted to us by 5:00 p.m. of the deadline day. We will not consider a proposal that is missing one or more items incomplete, and it will be withdrawn from consideration. If your organization is missing one or more of the required attachments or is unable to provide them by the grant deadline, it would be better to wait until the next deadline and submit a complete proposal.

Here are a few common mistakes that weaken a proposal:

• Not adequately answering the core values questions, these are a crucial piece of the review process
• Not including revenue in agency or program budgets
• Not completing a final report before applying
• Not describing the demographics of the population the organization serves or hopes to serve

If your organization falls in one of the categories listed below, you must provide information and documentation in addition to, or different from, what is normally required:

• Local affiliate of a national organization and operates under the 501(c)3 determination of the national organization
• School district or university/college
• Program, project, department, or individual school within a school district or university/college
• Foundation that is a the fundraising arm for another nonprofit organization or is an organization that raises funds for another nonprofit
• Organization applying on behalf of a collaborative group

In these circumstances, it is very important that you get the special information that you need (from our website or the Associate Grants Manager) before you submit your grant proposal. Failure to do so may result in an incomplete status or declination of your proposal.

Download the Collaboration Guidelines.

We require that proposals include all of the listed information and attachments. The only exception to this is if your organization is less than 12 months old and therefore does not have fiscal year-end financial statements. In this case, please be sure to include a page explaining this situation or the application will be deemed incomplete and automatically withdrawn from consideration.

The Foundation funds many faith-based organizations. However, we do not fund religious activities or programs that require religious activity as a condition of receiving services.

The grant guidelines include separate applications for 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations and residents or constituents who do not have nonprofit status. If your proposal works with both constituencies, such as a collaborative program, please apply using the nonprofit guidelines.

Organizations that received a grant from The Denver Foundation’s Community Grants Program are eligible to re-apply annually. For our other funding opportunities, specific instructions are included in the grant guidelines for each fund.

Organizations that have been declined may apply again one year later. We strongly encourage all organizations to review our guidelines and to contact us to talk about potential fit prior to submitting an application.

For more information or to schedule a conversation with a member of The Denver Foundation staff, please fill out our contact form, email grants@denverfoundation.org, or call us at 303.300.1790 and ask to speak to a member of the Impact Group about grant applications.

We invite collaboratives of all types to apply, including collaboratives made up of several nonprofit organizations, schools, governmental entities, resident groups and nonprofits, or nonprofit and business partnerships. The application lead must be a 501(c)(3) organization, and that organization will assume fiduciary responsibility for the grant.

By collaboration, we do not mean an organization that contracts with another organization to provide a specific service for a fee. Funded collaborations likely include shared financial investment by partners, shared planning and accountability, and/or shared staffing. The strongest collaborative applications will come from organizations and groups working together to achieve greater impact and do things in the community that they could not do alone.

Funded collaboratives are eligible to apply every 12 months. Nonprofit organizations can request support for their organizations and as a part of a collaborative in the same cycle.

Reviewing this FAQ page is a great first step! Next, we encourage you to visit the About TDF Grant Manager page on our website for an overview of the software. The next step is registering on the foundation’s online grant portal, TDF Grant Manager. 

For information about Strengthening Neighborhood or DESCI, press here.

You will need contact information for your organization, your organization’s Executive Director or CEO, and your Federal Tax ID number. If your organization does not have an Executive Director, you will be asked to provide a leadership contact for the organization during registration.

The Denver Foundation suggests you register as far in advance as possible, but no later than 5 business days before the application deadline.

A committee made up of members of the Advisory Committee for Community Impact and Engaged Philanthropy team members will review your grant application

The Organization Admin can manage all aspects of a nonprofit’s profile, including who is authorized to write grants on behalf of the organization. If you are the Organization Admin for your nonprofit and will also be writing the grant, you should also register as a Grant Writer.

The Grant Writer is the person who applies for grants on behalf of an organization. We encourage consultants working on behalf of an organization to choose this option. After registering, Grant Writers may request authorization to write a grant on behalf of an organization. The Organization Admin will approve or deny this request.

Denver Foundation staff members on the grant processing team have access to your profile. The Organizational Admin will approve or deny your request to associate your profile with their organization but otherwise cannot access your profile.

TDF funds that use an application process have a unique set of grant guidelines that are included in the summary of each fund. We recommend you read the guidelines for the fund before you begin the application. All funding opportunities are also listed on our website.

For all Community Grants Program applications, you will be required to upload your annual budget. If you are applying for a project grant, you will be required to upload a budget for the project. If applicable, you will be required to upload a final report for your previous grant award.

For other funding opportunities, the attachment instructions will be included in the grant guidelines for the fund. You can view the grant guidelines in TDF Grants Manager or on the Funding Opportunities page on our website.

We prefer that the applicant submit forms in PDF. The system accepts Word, Excel, and PDF files.

Character limits are listed with each question. The majority of narrative questions have a 2,500 character limit.

You may select one or more priority areas that reflect your programs. 

Yes, you can save progress on your application. We encourage you to regularly save your information to prevent losing work to a system timeout.

Your organization’s contact information and application history will be saved.

For more information or to schedule a conversation with a member of The Denver Foundation staff, please fill out our contact form, email grants@denverfoundation.org, or call us at 303.300.1790 and ask to speak to a member of the Impact Group about grant applications.

Once you create a profile you may request to associate your account with multiple organizations by going to “My Profile” in the menu on the right of the portal. Please keep in mind, an Organization Admin must register the nonprofit and then approve your request.

The site visit is an opportunity for The Denver Foundation to develop a deeper understanding of your organization and your proposal after the initial stage of the review process. The assigned program officer or consultant will get a chance to meet you face-to-face and discuss your organization’s programs, staffing, financial situation, board of directors, etc. It is also an opportunity for you to bring your organization “to life” in a way that just doesn’t happen in a proposal. While program officers necessarily ask a lot of questions, we strive to have the site visit be a two-way exchange of information. Site visits generally last about 1.5 hours.

The review committee will place emphasis on BIPOC/constituent led organizations, organizations that align with our priority areas, and basic financial health. 

Too many people can overwhelm or slow down a site visit. We recommend having no more than three or four people. Your program officer will make suggestions about who you might include, such as a board member or a program participant who can provide a valuable perspective on your work. Someone else from the Foundation may accompany an Impact officer, such as another staff member that will be reviewing your proposal, a committee member, or a donor. If this is the case, the program officer will let you know who else will be coming.

The projected timelines for grant reviews and grant disbursements are included in the summary of the funding opportunity in TDF Grant Manager.