Grant Application Information

The Common Good Grant program is pleased to request proposals from community organizations for the 2023-2024 grant cycle.

Overview

Local non-profits located within 20 miles of Brunswick that serves the Greater Brunswick area are invited to apply. Organizations outside of this radius, but who are BIPOC-led or who worked with Bowdoin’s 2023 orientation trips may also apply. Organizations who received funding in the previous year or in three of the previous eight years are ineligible to apply in the current year.

Letter of Intent Information

Your organization’s letter of intent (LOI) should be no more than one page, single spaced and written, if possible, on the letterhead of your organization. In the letter, addressed to the Common Good Grant Committee, we ask you to provide the following information:

A brief history of your nonprofit and its programs
How much funding you are applying for and what your objectives are with the funding (you can apply for up to $4,000 in funding this year);
What outcomes you expect from the grant;
Additional support, financial or programmatic, your organization has for the grant;
Contact information for your organization’s grant steward.

The 2023-24 Common Good Grant is now soliciting letters of intent from community organizations. We have decided to extend the deadline for letters of intent due to the recent tragic events in the greater Lewiston area. LOIs are now due on Monday, November 13th, 2023 at 12 PM and must be emailed to Sam Cogswell (s.collins@bowdoin.edu). For more information about the grantmaking details, see this document.

2023-24 Committee Areas of Emphasis

Over the last few years, the Common Good Grant Committee students have identified certain areas of need that they wish to emphasize in a given year. This year, the committee has made a commitment to fund at least one organization providing services in the following five areas:

Justice, Equity, and Culture
Health and Basic Needs
Adult and Youth Education and Development
Environment, Agriculture, and Sustainability

The committee will likely fund more than one grant from some of these categories, but this commitment is based on the committee recognizing the importance of diverse group of non-profits that do many different types of important work.

The committee has also committed to funding at least one organization Black or Indigenous leadership. BIPOC-led organizations working anywhere in Maine may apply for Common Good Grant in 2023-24. They can, but do not have to, fit into any of the above four areas of emphasis.

Questions about the Common Good Grant application or student committee can be directed to Sam Cogswell, Associate Director of the McKeen Center for the Common Good.