Grant Eligibility and Voting Policy

January, 2022

Grants will be awarded to nonprofit agencies that qualify as a 501(c)(3 )organization. This type of organization is a US corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization that is exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the US Code. These tax-exemptions apply to entities that are organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, literary or educational purposes. 

Members of the TPWF nominate organizations that are eligible to receive grants.  The organizations that are nominated are vetted by the the fiscal agent for the TPWF, the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation, for eligibility. Each member of the TPWF may nominate one organization per year.

Eligible organizations must be within a 50 mile radius of Downtown Duluth.

Nonprofit organizations that have received grants from the TPWF are not eligible for additional grant consideration for 2 years following the grant received. The organizations that are not eligible for grant consideration this year are:

         Year grant received.   name of organization

                   2020                     Duluth Area Family YMCA

                   2020                     Safe Haven Shelter and Resource Center

                   2021                     Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank

                   2021                     American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO)

When nominating a nonprofit organization for grant consideration, members of the TPWF should contact that organization to let them know that they are being nominated for a grant from the TPWF. The nominator then needs to submit the following information to the Grants Committee via email as instructed in a member email:

            1. Nominator name

            2. Organization name

            3. Contact information (director, email, phone and address)

            4. Why the organization is being nominated

Members will be notified by the Grants Committee of the TPWF if any additional information is needed and when the voting will take place.  The TPWF will then send the list of nominated organizations to the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation to be vetted, checking for 501(c)(3) status.

The Grants Committee will then contact the directors of the nominated organizations and ask them to email a brief description, approximately one half page in length, of how a potential grant would be used. Funds awarded by the TPWF are not intended for capital campaigns, endowment funds, special events/galas, travel expenses, direct scholarship requests from individuals or for exclusively sectarian purposes.

Once all of the nominated organizations have responded, members will receive information on all of the nominees that will be voted on. It is up to the discretion of the Grants Committee as far as the number of organizations that will be presented to membership but, in past years, all nominated organizations were presented to membership for a vote.  Each member will then vote on 2 eligible nonprofit organizations with the organizations receiving the top 2 number of votes will be awarded a grant.

This process will all take place via email and occur between January and March.