Purpose

Elevate Omaha’s Grantmaking Pillar aims to shift the power dynamics of traditional philanthropy—both in terms of who receives funding to implement their ideas and who makes those decisions. Our vision is a future led by those who are impacted by inequities and partnering with those groups and individuals to co-create solutions. We believe this work requires the elevation of those voices that have been historically excluded—including the voices of young people. To that end, we co-created a grantmaking model led by young people that will provide direct funding to implement youth-led, driven, or centered change making initiatives.

Definitions of Youth Participation and Involvement

Youth-Led: Young people have full control and leadership over all decision making, projects, and work. Everything is decided by young people at every step of the process. Adults/People of older generations are restricted to supportive roles and they will not take over the work.

Youth-Driven: Young people will have partial control and leadership over the decision making. Adults will have partial and maybe even majority of the control and leadership along with sharing tasks with the young people they are working with.

Youth-Centered: Young people have little to no control and leadership in youth-centered initiatives. In most youth-centered work, young people are restricted to informing the work through their expertise, opinions, and time but adults are in charge of decision making and do not make room for young people to be part of the process.

Award Details and Eligibility

In the spirit of uplifting youth voices and being responsive to issues of importance to the local community, Elevate Omaha’s Grantmaking Program funds projects/programs that align with priority funding areas that change annually. Yearly priority areas are identified through surveying the local youth community prior to the opening of our grant cycle. Listed below are this year's priority funding areas. Proposals must align with one of these areas to be considered for funding.

Eligibility

Groups of 3 or more individuals or non-profit organizations with budgets of a million dollars or less are eligible to apply. Proposed projects/programs must be youth led, driven, or centered - Definitions of how we define these are provided above. Fiscal sponsorship through our partners One Omaha is available for groups without non-profit status. Additionally, proposed projects/programs must be implemented between June 1st through September 1st, 2024 and grantees must provide a grant report in October, 2024.

Groups or organizations may only apply once a year. Returning groups or organizations may apply after the grant report from the previous grant has been submitted. Awards will be between $500 - $5000.

2024 Priority Areas

Civic Engagement
Education
Environment
LGBTQ+
Reproductive Rights
Systems (Foster care, Criminal, Immigration)

The application will be open beginning January 15, 2024 and will close on February 15, 2024 at 11:59pm CST.

Timeline

January 2024

Application opens January 15.

February 2024

Application closes February 15.

March 2024

Grantees are selected and announced.

April 2024

Grants award ceremony

May 2024

Funds are distributed

June-September 2024

Proposed projects/programs must be implemented by June 1st through September 1, 2024

October 2024

Grant reports submitted

INELIGIBLE REQUESTS

Grant requests are not considered for publishing of books, television, or radio programs or production, travel funds, advertisement, individual scholarship, or endowments.

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A gmail account may be required to fill out the application

Additional Resources

application Sample

Program Application Template

budget Sample

Budget Template

A timeline will be requested as part of the application. For reference, please use the timeline above and edit to your program needs.

Additional project support offered by One Omaha

One Omaha also offers collaborative services to help groups and organizations build their mission statement, create a budget, and create project/program timelines. We encourage interested applicants to review the linked One Omaha resources ahead of applying as they require appointments for their services