Boettcher Foundation: Rural Catalyst Grants (Fall)

The Rural Catalyst Grant Program strengthens the internal capacity of organizations as they work to achieve goals outlined in Boettcher’s Rural Leadership Collaborative meetings. Our Rural Leadership Collaborative meetings are quarterly gatherings where rural leaders come together to discuss strategies that advance their organizations, communities, and regions.

There are two funding cycles to apply for Rural Catalyst Grants.

We prefer that organizations only submit one application of the following grant opportunities (Leadership Practitioner Catalyst Grant, Rural Catalyst Grant, or Community Connections Grant) per cycle.

These capacity-building grants range from $1,000-$10,000 and are distributed to support the following types of projects:

• Strategic planning: Identifying elements of a blueprint that helps an organization accomplish its goals.
• Convening: Bringing people, ideas, and resources together to move forward an issue, topic, or opportunity.
• Short-term staffing or contractors: Supporting employees or expertise recruited for short-term employment contracts to meet limited, one-time support needs.
• One-time operating costs: Covering expenses related to the operation of the organization or program that are not recurring, such as tap fees, application fees, public outreach, or education material expenses.

Fund work in rural Colorado to move forward on a number of eligible issue areas, including affordable housing, childcare, community-to-community collaboration, mental health, rural placemaking, serving immigrant and/or refugee communities, rural water management, and other.

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