Grant Details

The Greater New Orleans Foundation serves Southeast Louisiana by identifying community needs, designing and leading broad-based initiatives to meet those needs, and supporting the local and regional nonprofits whose missions complement ours.

The Foundation organizes grant programs into nine major categories of community and human development: 

• Environment - The Foundation's environmental work focuses on three issue areas: the management of urban water, the protection and restoration of the Gulf Coast, and the growth of the Southeast Louisiana water economy. Moreover, an overarching theme of the environmental work is the promotion of environmental, social, and economic sustainability in the greater New Orleans region.
• Crime - The Foundation's approach to addressing the city's high murder rate is first and foremost to address some of its root causes: lack of opportunity for low-income families; sub-par public schools; disengaged and alienated youth; unaddressed mental health and substance abuse issues; and lack of a living wage for workers, among others. 
• Economic Opportunity - The Foundation focuses on creating opportunities for low-income families to realize their full economic potential through meaningful employment, paths to affordable home-ownership, savings and investments, financial education and counseling, and small business growth and development.
• Education - The Foundation supports this effort with an eye to ensuring that reforms do indeed create the public education system that students, their families, and our communities have always deserved. The Foundation also supports programs that improve the ability of parents and other stakeholders including students to shape these reforms. By building trust and a shared sense of purpose between school officials, families, and the community at large, we can more effectively create a high-functioning public school system.
• Children and Youth - The Foundation invests in programs that support healthy child development from school readiness programs for preschoolers to after-school options that enhance cognitive, social, and emotional skills for teenagers. Because parents are the most knowledgeable and effective advocates for their children, the foundation also invests in economic security, leadership training, and other support for parents.
• LGBT Fund - Established in 2016, the LGBT Fund was established by community champions ready to strengthen nonprofit organizations that represent the interests of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community.
• Arts and Culture - Arts and culture gives New Orleans its vitality and distinguish our region from every other place in the United States. From shrimp po-boys to Dixieland jazz, raucous parades to soulful street musicians, New Orleans' cultural legacy is our home-grown treasure - our most famous attraction as well as our most prized export.
• Organizational Effectiveness - Organizational effectiveness, or OE, is the ability of an organization to marshal its knowledge, skills, and other resources to effectively fulfill its purpose. Also referred to as capacity building,” OE describes the effort to ensure that nonprofits benefit from good management and strong governance, and are equipped to deliver programs that serve the community.
• Health and Human Services - The Foundation is focused on building a health and social services delivery system responsive to the needs of our diverse communities and coordinated across government, nonprofit, and other providers. Their goal is to invest in the people on whom our collective well-being depends and help our neediest neighbors regain control over their lives.