Information for Grantseekers

The Lawson Valentine Foundation is a multi-generational family trust that is committed to supporting advocacy, organizing, policy, and leadership development in reference to food systems, including local sustainable agriculture, food sovereignty, and workers’ rights, as well as environmental justice.

We accomplish this through our grantmaking activities, by advising and fostering connections among our grantees, and through influencing our peers in the philanthropic community. Our strategy is to provide long-term support to grassroots community-based organizers and advocates, low wage workers, and other change agents working among people of color, low-income youth, immigrants, refugees and other underserved populations.

Since we develop long-standing relationships with our partner organizations, Lawson Valentine Foundation funds by invitation only. These organizations are carefully chosen and align with our mission. On occasion, our partnerships can change, and we may look for another organization to fund. If after reading through our website, you feel your mission aligns with ours and that your non-profit would be a good fit, we can add you to our database through the Letter of Inquiry (LOI) form. This is the best way to introduce yourselves to us and it helps us keep current with innovative ideas in the field. Please do not send us unsolicited proposals and please do not send LOIs through mail or email. If you are a current grantee or have been invited to submit a full proposal, you will enter the grantee portal with a special password provided to you.

We typically fund in the Northeast region. International funding is only done through two trusted partners.

Please see our grants page for a description of our current grantees and links to their homepages. In phase II of our website rollout we will list our past grantees.  For the most part, many of the groups you see on the grants list have been receiving funds from Lawson Valentine Foundation for many years.

Our grants range from $10,000 – 25,000 in general operating support per year. Annually, we distribute $600,000 – 700,000.

Invited proposals for Environmental Justice non-profits are due on March 1 each year. The Board of Trustees meets in early June to discuss the proposals and make funding recommendations which are communicated to our partners within a couple of days of that meeting. Invited proposals for Sustainable Agriculture and Food System non-profits are due on August 1 each year. The Board of Trustees meets in early November to discuss the proposals and make funding recommendations which are communicated to our partners within a couple of days of that meeting.

Please refer to our rich history to learn more about how the foundation started and about the Lawson Valentine Foundation’s benefactor, Alice Doyle and her legacy. We are considered a small private, family foundation whose assets are consciously invested; at this time, we do not solicit outside funding.

Yes. We only make grants to organizations that meet the Internal Revenue Service’s 501(c)(3) requirements as a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. We do make grants to qualifying fiscal sponsors of organizations who do not hold their own 501(c)(3) status.

• Requests from individuals
• Organizations which are not designated 501(c)(3) by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (except through qualifying fiscal sponsors)
• Religious institutions and activities
• Scholarships
• Protection of wildlands, wildlife, water conservation or land trusts
• Colleges, universities, schools and programs for schools; camps
• Endowments, capital campaigns, deficit financing
• Internationally based organizations
• Organizations with annual budgets over $1M