This program is all about helping people with disabilities gain more independence, a stronger sense of purpose, and a greater sense of belonging in their communities.

We focus on launching new initiatives, or expansions that increase either size or accessibility of existing projects.

A sample list of past grants is available in the Pages menu above, or by clicking here.

⚠️ We strongly encourage you to read this whole page to avoid potential frustration caused by system quirks. ⚠️

Key Project Requirements

1. Participants experience an active disability preventing them from maintaining lifestyle stability.
2. Participants actively build requisite skills through applied learning and training in the field, not only in classrooms or remote learning.
3. Participants demonstrate how the newly learned skills resulted in greater independence, sense of purpose, or personal best.
4. There is a plan to be financially sustainable, including diversified income sources and earned revenue components.
5. It increases access to meaningful interactions between people of all abilities and participants experiencing at least one active disability.
6. Both disabled and non-disabled personnel are included in participant-facing roles.

Application Process Overview

Applications will move through the following four steps. All of these steps must be completed and submitted before the deadline shown below the "Apply" button on this page.

1. Pre-Qualification — Basic information about the requesting organization, its proposed project, and its culture.
2. Application Part 1 — Details about the proposed project, primarily its projected financials and demographics, and an opportunity to include supplementary photos, videos, and/or financial reports.
3. Before starting Application Part 2, applicants will be prompted to request two outside recommendations from past funders, partners, stakeholders, or advisers of the requesting organization.
4. Application Part 2 — More details about the proposed project: What it will do, how it will be done, and why it is needed.
   Both recommendations must be received (the system will notify when that happens) before submitting this step.

A more detailed outline of questions in each of the main forms is available separately.

In between submissions, applicants' responses will be reviewed by FS Foundation board or staff. Upon approval, applicants will be invited to begin the next step. Submitting Part 2 completes the application. Final award decisions will be emailed by late December.

Typically, awardees from December are asked to submit a final report by the following September. The reporting deadline is flexible, but we cannot consider another grant application until after a satisfactory final report is received.

Evaluation Criteria

1. Concise request including ideal amount, structure, timeline, and budget (both revenue and expenses).
2. Clear, concise, relevant and measurable goals, objectives, and strategies to achieve a real solution to a real problem.
3. Quantifiable outcomes, and a plan for assessing success using reliable tools.
4. Detailed action items describing tangible results produced over a series of sessions.
5. Verifiable rationale demonstrating the applying organization's ability to solve this problem.
6. Clear, concise, and detailed statement of how this project will improve the applying organization.

Keep In Mind

1. One project per application. Please do not combine multiple requests in your answers.
2. First-time applicants should target their requests to between $25,000 – $75,000.
   Exceptions: Requests for general operations funding or amounts outside that range may be accepted from our previous grant recipients, by special invitation.
3. Only one request per organization per year can be reviewed, unless specifically excepted.
4. Applications must be completed by the Deadline shown to the right. Past this deadline, the application system will no longer offer the option to Submit.
5. Incomplete applications not withdrawn by the applicant may be invited to continue early in the following year.
6. We recommend frequent manual saving using the "Save" button on each form page.

Potential Gotchas

• Before starting the application, you will be asked to input the name of your proposed project. Please triple-check this before beginning; it will identify your application to reviewers.
• Before submitting the application, please be sure that you have reviewed all answers and edited them to your satisfaction.
  • To Review your answers: If all tasks are completed, you can click the "Review" button on the left. There is also a "Preview" link at the top of your task list that is always available.
  • To Edit your answers: If clicking into the task you want to modify doesn't immediately let you make changes, click the three-dot menu (⋯) in the top right corner and choose "Edit" to re-enable editing. You can then make changes, navigating between form pages using the "Previous" and "Next" buttons.
• Once you hit "Submit" for a step, responses cannot be changed.
• During Pre-Qualification, the applicant will be asked to choose which of these three Focus Areas best represents the project. This choice will affect what questions are asked in later application stages, and cannot be changed.
  • Careers and Technical Training
  • Creative Arts and Expression
  • Health and Fitness
• To prevent lost work, consider writing long answers outside the form then pasting them in (and saving!) when done. SMApply auto-saves regularly in your browser, however keeping forms open for too long without saving can confuse the server or allow your login session to expire.
  Check the SMApply documentation linked below for directions on how to download a copy of your application to work on offline.

SMApply Documentation

This page includes instructions for dealing with common issues we found during our application system testing. For more general help, refer to SMApply's Application FAQ.