Funding Priorities and How We Invest

Overview

The Brown Sisters Foundation invests in faith-based organizations in the Greater St. Louis region that are working to bring hope, opportunity, and lasting change to under-resourced communities.

We fund primarily through challenge grants designed to strengthen organizations at pivotal moments—whether expanding programs, strengthening operations, or positioning for long-term sustainability.

The Foundation looks for catalytic projects that sit at the intersection of readiness, timeliness, and opportunity. An example of this is when an organization has demonstrated strong program impact and is prepared to expand its work, but needs additional capacity to do so effectively. At these moments, a strategic investment can generate significant missional leverage, strengthening the organization’s ability to advance its mission, as well as financial leverage by using a challenge grant to help broaden and deepen its base of financial support for long-term sustainability.

We encourage organizations to ask for what they need to support a strategically designed leverage-based project. Our average grant size is $20,000. It is rare for the Foundation to make grants larger than $50,000.

Since 2009, our grantees have raised an average of $6.50 for every $1 invested by the Brown Sisters Foundation, often surpassing their fundraising goals.

Mission Fit – Who We Fund

We seek to partner with Catholic and Christian Protestant organizations that are deeply committed to serving disadvantaged communities and advancing meaningful, lasting transformation.

We seek to fund organizations that:

  • Are located in and serve the Greater St. Louis region, operating within approximately 20 miles of Forest Park.
  • Seek to bring the hope and love of God to under-resourced communities. We fund Catholic and Christian Protestant organizations that operate with a clear commitment to faith and mission.
  • Work in a way that creates transformative change for their constituents, and operate within a clear outcomes framework to most effectively trigger that transformation.
  • Seek to empower and dignify the people they serve.
  • We are particularly passionate about working with young people, and helping to create strong trajectories for their future.
  • Operate with passion, urgency, and unflagging commitment to their cause, with a clear and contagious sense of dedication, and a compelling strategy and framework for channeling their passion into traction.
  • Demonstrate fiscal responsibility, transparency, accountability, and sustainability – exhibit a viable financial position, carry minimal debt load, and that practice and move toward long-term sustainability.  We typically fund organizations with operating budgets under $2 million.
  • Understand the value of collaboration, and engage in authentic partnership with likeminded organizations where appropriate.
  • Operate in a mode informed by best practice with a spirit of innovation – avoid the duplication of services, pursue unmet needs, and advance best practices for their field or demographic.

Project Fit – What We Fund

We invest in projects that generate meaningful leverage for the organizations we partner with. We evaluate leverage in two ways: missional leverage and financial leverage.

 MISSIONAL LEVERAGE

We support projects that strengthen an organization’s ability to advance its mission and expand impact.

Examples include:

  • Projects that will help build the organization’s resiliency and long-term sustainability in support of its vision and mission.
  • Capacity-building requests that support expansion, transition, or retooling operations to develop a more sustainable model.
  • Program, human resource, or capital requests that will enable an organization to reach its market in new ways, expand services to its existing market, or reach underserved groups that fit the organization’s mission. We will consider existing, expanded, or new program requests.
  • Development capacity-building requests that strengthen an organization’s ability to connect with and increase donations from its existing donor base and tap into new donor pools.
  • Social entrepreneurship ventures that will allow an organization to simultaneously become more sustainable and further its mission.

 FINANCIAL LEVERAGE

Most Brown Sisters Foundation grants include a challenge fundraising component. Challenge grants are designed to help organizations energize donors and expand their funding base.

Organizations receiving a challenge grant commit to raising new and/or increased funding as part of the grant agreement. The heart of a Brown Sisters grant is to give organizations a timely and specific ask to engage donors, helping them create sustainable revenue by leaning into donors groups like individuals and churches that will support them year after year if stewarded properly.

Typical challenge grant expectations include:

  • A minimum 2:1 match, with higher leverage encouraged based on the organization’s situation and fundraising capabilities.
  • Funds raised from new, lapsed, or increased donors. Increased donors are defined as existing donors who give at an increased amount, with the difference between the past gift and the increased gift counting towards the challenge.
  • Gifts secured from multiple donors, rather than a single contributor. The grant agreement will stipulate that no single donor should make up more than 50% of the challenge amount.
  • Strategic outreach to donor groups that represent long-term growth opportunities.

Challenge funds are typically raised during a 14-month grant period (November 1 – December 31 of the following year).

What We Don’t Fund

There are a few areas outside of our focus:

  • General core support requests
  • Operating deficits
  • Grants or loans to individuals
  • Event sponsorships
  • Lobbying
  • Response to existing matched funding opportunities
  • Endowments
  • Projects/services located outside of the St. Louis, Missouri region

Partnership

The Brown Sisters Foundation views our investment in grantees as a partnership toward common objectives. As challenges or changes come up during grant implementation, we stay in close communication our grantee partners to figure out the next best step forward.

Annual Grant Process Timeline

Each year, our grant cycle begins in early summer. We do not accept proposals outside of our annual grant process. Typically, our grant process is as follows:

  • Mid to Late May: Grant Process Opens. We send out an email blast to our contact list announcing the start of our funding process. Click here to join our mailing list.
  • Mid to Late June: Letters of Inquiry Due. A short Letter of Inquiry (LOI) is intended to help both the organization and the Brown Sisters Foundation determine whether a project/organization meets the criteria and priorities of the Foundation, without asking the organization to invest a great deal of time in the application process. We accept LOIs from any interested agency who meets our funding criteria.
  • July & August: Full Grant Application. Those organizations that pose the strongest fit will be invited to submit a full application. We only accept full grant applications from agencies that we have invited to do so. These invitations are issued via email in late July/early August and full applications are due in late August.
  • Mid-October: Board Presentations. Of those organizations that submit a full application, candidates with the strongest fit will be invited to share a short presentation with our Board of Directors in mid-October.
  • Late October: Funding Decisions Announced. Organizations will be notified of funding by late October and in most cases the grant period starts November 1 and runs through December 31 of the following calendar year (14 months).

Stay Connected

Interested organizations can join our mailing list to receive updates about future funding opportunities.