Park Foundation

OVERVIEW: The Park Foundation makes grants for civic engagement, democracy, media, environmental concerns, higher education, racial justice and animals. Funding is national in scope, but the state of New York and Tomkins County are geographic priorities.

IP TAKE: Initially a higher education funder, the Park Foundation now supports a broad range progressive causes including journalism and media, social justice, civic engagement and environmental initiatives in New York State and across the U.S. This funder makes grants largely through an equity lens across all focus areas, a detail grantseekers must keep in mind before approaching the foundation. Grantseekers should familiarize themselves with the foundation’s funding priorities, most of which name very specific targets for support. This is, however, an accessible and transparent foundation that supports organizations of all sizes with project or general operating grants. Park invites grantseekers to communicate with staff members prior to submitting a letter of inquiry. Full proposals must be invited.

PROFILE: Established in 1966 and based in Ithaca, New York, the Park Foundation was created by Roy H. Park, Sr., who founded, chaired and served as chief executive officer of Park Communications, Inc., a company that published newspapers and owned television and radio stations in the 1970s and 1980s. Roy Park is also credited with creating the Duncan Hines food brand. The Park Foundation’s early grantmaking emphasized higher education, but it has since broadened its scope to include democracy, civic participation, media, environment and animal welfare. It also runs local funding programs for Sustainable Ithaca and community needs and school-based food and nutrition for Tompkins County, New York.

Grants Civic Engagement and Democracy

The Park Foundation’s democracy giving area supports a broad range of efforts for “a just, inclusive, sustainable society.”

One specific goal of the program is to support work to overturn the 2010 Citizens United supreme court decision, which eliminated federal regulations on political ads paid for by corporations or unions.
Other areas of interest include voter access, election reform, leadership development, preventing “partisan or racial gerrymandering” and general support for “progressive legislative agendas.”
Grantees of Park’s democracy program include NEO Philanthropy’s Youth Engagement Fund, the Public Citizen Foundation, the State Innovation Exchange, Voteriders and American Oversight, ” a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog that advances truth, accountability, and democracy by enforcing the public’s right to government records.”

The Park Foundation’s separate civic participation grantmaking area supports “the implementation of democracy through exercise of the franchise and other direct forms of civic involvement.”

While voter engagement is a main area of interest, grantmaking does not only target efforts for voter registration and voter turnout; it funds ongoing work for “robust and widespread involvement by the electorate.”
Other areas of interest include state and national initiatives for voting rights, election integrity and push-back against “attempts to suppress participation in the democratic process.”
Grantees of the civic engagement giving area include the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Forward TN, the National Congress of American Indians, the Voter Registration Project and the Black Progressive Action Coalition Education Fund.

Grants for Marine and Freshwater Conservation, Climate Change and Clean Energy

The Park Foundation’s environment giving area prioritizes the management of clean drinking water supply and stopping the expansion of shale gas extraction.

Grantmaking for drinking water supply works nationally and/or in the state of New York to strengthen policy, investment and infrastructure related to clean and affordable public drinking water supply. This subprogram also articulates interest in the reduction of dependence on bottled water sources and the removal of lead from water supply. Grantees include the New York Public Interest Research Group, Toxic Free Future, Freshwater Future and the Seneca Lake Guardian.
Park’s subprogram for limiting shale gas extraction targets policy development, advocacy, organizing and corporate engagement that challenges the industries expansion. A significant portion of this work concerns extraction projects in New York. To a lesser extent the foundation supports more general work to “help shift the state’s energy needs away from conventional fossil fuel sources and toward a clean energy system.” Grantees include the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, Solar United Neighbors, Buffalo’s Public Accountability Initiative and All Our Energy, a New York organization that “empower[s] the public to support renewable energy and act on environmental protection.”

Grants for Journalism and Film

Park’s grantmaking for media overlaps with its progressive work for democracy and civic participation in that it supports “public interest media that raises awareness of critical environmental, political and social issues to promote a better-informed citizenry in the U.S.

Grants focus on investigative journalism, policy, public broadcast media and documentary film projects.
Recent recipients of media grants include the WGBH Educational Foundation of Boston, Investigative Reporters and Editors of Columbia, Missouri and the Center for Media and Democracy.

Grants for Higher Education

The Park Foundation’s higher education funding prioritizes its founder’s affiliations rather than investing in a built-out grantmaking approach in this focus area.

Ongoing support goes to North Carolina State University, where Roy Park earned his journalism degree. Over the past decade, the foundation has given $50 million to North Carolina State’s endowment, with the stipulation that the gift be “invested in a socially responsible fashion.” The foundation also supports a scholarship fund for the university that supports more than 30 scholarships each year.
Park served on the board of trustees at Ithaca College. The foundation made a recent gift of $30 to Ithaca to back the Roy H. Park School of Communications and a Park Scholars program.
Recent funding has also supported the nearby SUNY Cortlandt campus.

Grants for Animals and Wildlife

Grants stemming from Park’s animal welfare initiative support “nationally significant efforts to advance the protection and conservation of wildlife.”

The bulk of this funding supports advocacy for conservation of endangered species.
Animal sanctuaries and Indigenous groups have received support, and the foundation names specific interest in pollinators, wolves, whales and birds, but has supported efforts for other endangered animals as well.
Grantees include Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology, Wildearth Guardians and the Human Society of the United States.

Grants for Racial Justice and Equity

In 2020, in the wake of the murder George Floyd, the Park Foundation reaffirmed its commitment to racial justice in the U.S. and its support for “peaceful demonstration and the work that must be done for meaningful and measurable change to end systemic racism.” The foundation does not maintain a funding initiative for its racial justice giving, but works across all areas to support equity. Recent grants have gone to “front line” organizations in the fight for racial justice including the Movement for Black Lives, PushBlack, Color of Change, Ultimate Re-Entry Opportunity and Alternatives Federal Credit Union.

Other Grantmaking Opportunities

The Park Foundation maintains three initiatives that serve the local communities of Tompkins County, New York.

Sustainable Ithaca supports conservation, clean energy initiatives, environmental education and sustainable zoning, transportation and planning initiatives. Collaborative projects and those that empower low-income and minority communities are emphasized.
A second initiative, Community Needs, strives to establish equity and create opportunity to low-income residents of Tompkins County. Recent areas of focus include youth services, advocacy and community organizing.
The foundation also maintains an initiative for School Food and Nutrition, which aims to ensure “that every student in Tompkins County has access to and is choosing to eat nutritious and appealing food in school.

Grantees of the Tompkins County programs include Ithaca’s Drop-In Children’s Center, Tompkins Cortland Community College, Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES and the Southside Community Center of Ithaca.

Important Grant Details:

The Park Foundation’s grants range from $5,000 to $250,000.

This is a progressive funder that supports organizations of any size in its areas of stated interest.
A significant portion of its funding, especially in the environmental giving area, stays in the foundation’s home state of New York.
The Park Foundation “strives to minimize unnecessary work for prospective grantees” and asks grantseekers who feel their work fits with the foundation’s priorities to contact a staff member to “assess fit with program interests.”
After an initial conversation, grantseekers may submit a letter of inquiry at any time via the application portal.
Full proposals are accepted by invitation only and reviewed quarterly, with deadlines that fall on specific dates in January, March, July and September each year.
For additional information about past grants, see the Park Foundation’s grants database.

General inquiries may be addressed to the foundation’s staff via email at info@parkfoundation.org or by telephone at (607) 272-9124. Feel free to reach out to specific staff members with questions about programs or applications.

PEOPLE:

Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).

LINKS: