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| GRANT GUIDELINES and APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS HISTORICAL BACKGROUND The Betterment Fund was created for charitable purposes by the will of the late William Bingham, 2nd, a resident of Bethel, Maine, who died in 1955. Mr. Bingham was a self-effacing philanthropist with an abiding interest in education and the improvement of health services in the State of Maine. During Mr. Bingham’s lifetime, Gould Academy in Bethel was a major recipient of Mr. Bingham’s benefactions. Mr. Bingham also made grants to many individuals from within and beyond the Gould and Bethel communities to enable them to further their education. Since Mr. Bingham’s death, the Betterment Fund has established scholarship funds in his memory at several Maine colleges, with scholarship award preference to be given to residents of Bethel, Oxford County and the State of Maine in that order of priority. Mr. Bingham’s medical interests historically were pursued largely through the Bingham Associates Fund, now known as the Bingham Program, which developed a program in Boston for the advancement of rural medicine in Maine. The Bingham Associates program served as a model worldwide for outreach programs designed to strengthen the quality of health services in smaller communities. See www.binghamprogram.org. In recent years, the Betterment Fund has partnered with Bingham Program on several Maine health projects. CURRENT POLICY AND GRANT PRIORITIES Although the traditional recipients of Mr. Bingham’s benefactions continue to be of special interest to the Fund and scholarship support continues to be a significant activity, the Betterment Fund has come to view the areas of education and health more broadly, and will consider requests from qualified institutions and organizations whose activities promote education or health improvement and which have the potential to have a significant positive impact on the lives of Maine residents in these areas. The Betterment Fund also has expanded its areas of grantmaking to include programs which support local communities in their own efforts to increase their capacity to improve and sustain the quality of life for residents and programs for the preservation and responsible use of Maine’s natural resources. The Betterment Fund makes grants exclusively to benefit the residents of the State of Maine. Special consideration may be given to projects in the Western Mountains region because of Mr. Bingham’s personal history with Bethel and his demonstrated interest in the surrounding area. Priority generally will be given to proposals seeking to impact the more rural parts of Maine. Please see the Fund’s most recent annual Grants Summary for examples of grantmaking activities and also note the statement of Current Grant Priorities, both of which are posted on the Betterment Fund website, www.megrants.org/betterment.htm.We urge you to study the Current Grant Priorities before deciding whether to submit a grant application to the Fund. SIZE OF GRANTS Grants may vary in size from a single grant of $10,000 to, infrequently, a grant of more than $100,000 payable over several years. Most Betterment Fund grants are in the range of $20,000 to $50,000 and may or may not be made on a matching basis. In some cases a grant may be made for more than one year but no organization will receive continuous annual support. Occasionally the Fund will make larger grants from the assets of the Fund; such grants are made at the initiative of the Fund and should not be used as models for grant applications. The Fund has no staff. Accordingly, it cannot give advance advice on contemplated grant applications, nor can it give adequate consideration to numerous small grant applications. Realizing that many of these proposals have merit, the Fund has given funds to, among others, the Maine Community Foundation to support the award by MCF of smaller grants, particularly focused on rural areas of Maine. Applications for such grants may be made to MCF at 245 East Main Street, Ellsworth, Maine 04605. Information about MCF and its programs is available on the MCF website, www.mainecf.org GENERAL CRITERIA FOR GRANT SELECTION In evaluating requests for grants, the following criteria may be considered by the Fund: 1. Programs: The Betterment Fund makes grants for the support of specific projects and programs as well as general operations. Innovative programs will be given special consideration, particularly if they appear to have the potential for broader application or for attracting funding from other public and private sources. On occasion, grants will be made for the acquisition of equipment or for facilities. Endowment grants are infrequent and are normally made only to organizations which have demonstrated special merit in handling previous annual grants from the Fund. From time to time the trustees may identify particular target program areas in which to concentrate grants for a limited period. (See Current Grant Priorities on the Betterment Fund website, www.megrants.org/betterment.htm 2. Constituency Support: The Betterment Fund looks for
evidence of substantial support from the constituency of the applicant,
whether the constituency is private or governmental. The support may
be evidenced by donated services as well as financial support. Generally
the Fund will favor grants that are designed to build permanent capacity
in the organization or targeted community over proposals involving short-term
solutions. 4. Sustainability: If the grant request is for operating support or a long term program, it is particularly important for the organization to demonstrate a realistic plan for the continuance of the organization and program after the proposed Betterment Fund grant has been exhausted. 5. Collaborations: Collaborative proposals that draw on the strengths of several organizations and groups in the community will be given priority over otherwise equivalent proposals which do not. The Betterment Fund welcomes collaborations with other funding sources. 6. Exclusions: The Betterment Fund does not make grants to individuals, nor does it make grants for the support of religious activities or programs. 7. Tax-Exempt Status: The Fund makes grants only to publicly supported organizations which are exempt from taxation under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) and are not private foundations, or which are exempt as government agencies or bodies. Any organization which is not itself tax exempt and relies on fiscal agency or sponsorship by a separate publicly supported tax-exempt organization or government agency to meet the Fund’s tax-exempt organization requirement must include in its grant application the information specified below under “Fiscal Sponsorship” regarding both the sponsor and the sponsorship relationship. GRANT APPLICATION PROCEDURE Applicants are to complete and submit: (1) EITHER the Betterment Fund Application Cover Sheet OR the Maine Philanthropy Center Common Grant Application ‘B Format’ which can be found on the Maine Philanthropy Center website; (the Fund does not accept the MPC ‘A Format’ Common Grant Application); (2) The Fund’s Proposal Coding Sheet; (3) a succinct description of the proposed grant, not longer than 5 pages, in not smaller than 12-point type; and (4) the other supporting information and document copies specified on the Application Cover Sheet. On occasion, after studying a submitted grant application, Fund trustees may request additional information they feel is needed or would be useful in their deliberations on the application. Proposals must be submitted in hard copy in seven (7) full counterparts to the Fund’s administrative office in New York, the address of which is: The Betterment Fund, c/o Christine O’Donnell, NY1-100-28-05, Bank of America, One Bryant Park, New York, NY 10036. As of calendar year 2006, the Fund trustees normally meet in March, June and November to consider grant applications, and application receipt deadlines for consideration at these meetings are the last days of January, April and September, respectively. Applications must be received at the Fund’s administrative office by those dates to be considered at the corresponding trustees’ meetings. In most cases, the Fund trustees will decline to consider any proposal that has been submitted by an organization (a) which has submitted a proposal (whether or not successful) to the Fund within the prior twelve (12) months or (b) has an outstanding grant commitment from the Fund. Generally the trustees will not consider a new grant application from a grantee which has not submitted its final report on a prior Betterment Fund grant or the Fund trustee overseeing that grant has not accepted and approved the final report submitted. FISCAL SPONSORSHIP Due to regulatory requirements with which the Fund must comply, any organization which relies on a fiscal agent or sponsorship relationship with a separate organization in order to satisfy the Betterment Fund’s requirement that the applicant be recognized as a public charity must fulfill additional grant application requirements in respect of that sponsorship relationship. These include that the organization must have in effect a formal fiscal agency agreement with the sponsoring entity, for which a simple confirmatory letter from the sponsor cannot be substituted. Please contact the Fund’s administrative office to request a sample form of fiscal agency agreement if in doubt about what should be included in the agreement. The sponsored organization’s grant application to the Betterment Fund must include the following: (1) a copy of the formal fiscal agency agreement; (2) a statement explaining why the applicant is not itself currently recognized as a public charity, and stating whether or not it has filed or is in the process of filing an IRS Form 1023 (application for recognition of tax exemption); (3) the name and address of the sponsoring organization and the name, telephone number and email address (if any) of a contact person there; and (4) copies of the sponsor organization’s (a) certificate of incorporation, (b) tax exemption letter from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, (c) most recent audited financial statements and auditor’s report, and (d) resolution of its board authorizing it to serve as the grant applicant’s fiscal sponsor. The sponsor must be an organization formed under the laws of the State of Maine and have its principal office in Maine. REPORTS Each organization receiving a Betterment Fund grant is expected to submit a report within sixteen (16) months after Betterment Fund grant disbursement. The report should include an on-going evaluation of the project and a description of any changes in the project from the information shown in the grant application, including changes in actual or projected budgets, revenue, expenses or funding sources. In cases of multi-year grants, interim reports also are required, to be received by the Fund within twelve (12) months after grantee receipt of the previous grant installment payment. If the grantee organization has had a fiscal agent or fiscal sponsor for purposes of the grant, its reports must describe any changes in the relationship with the fiscal agent and, if the relationship is continuing, confirm that the organization continues to fulfill the Fund’s requirements relating to the fiscal agency. Late submission of a report may result in delay of the schedule of grant payments for any subsequent year or years. Grantees will be advised at the time of grant notification or from time to time thereafter of the address or addresses where reports are to be sent, and of additional report content requirements; this information may also be obtained by request to the Fund’s administrative office. PUBLICITY In keeping with Mr. Bingham’s own practice, the Betterment Fund seeks no public recognition for grants except such publicity as may be helpful to the grantee organization in raising additional funds for the same project. A simple factual acknowledgement of the grant in the grantee organization’s publications is appropriate. In no case should the name of any individual trustee be publicized in connection with the grant. The Fund trustees may occasionally share with outside organizations information about grant applications received and grants made. Accordingly, grant applicants and grantees should have no expectation of confidentiality regarding their submissions and reports to the Fund.
July 2009
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