Kid Kindness Grant Winners

Announcing our Kid Kindness Grant Winners!

Why wasn't my application funded?

Each year, we receive more applications than we have funds to support. Sadly, this means that we are not able to provide grants to every child who applies. Students who don't receive funding often wonder why, and we are always happy to provide that feedback. We also want applicants to have the best chance possible of receiving funding for their project. So, we are providing some examples of the kind of projects we turn down each year, so that you can adjust your idea and your application to avoid these pitfalls:

• The application was clearly not written by a child. Sometimes this is hard to tell, and we give a lot of grace because we know our youth are highly capable and many are excellent writers. But, when the application comes from a 5 or 6 year old, and none of the application is written in the child's words, we do not fund those projects. We expect adults to help young kids. But we want to hear directly from the kids! Read them the question and then type in their answer word for word. The supervising adult can then add in the additional details as needed. Often applications will clearly delineate the child's answer and then the adults additions for each question.

• The kindness project is not creative. For example, we receive many applications every year from kids who want to make sandwiches for people who are homeless. While this is an important and worthy way to spread kindness, we sadly cannot fund every application (yet!). Consequently, we fund the projects that take this idea a step further and do something in addition to making sandwiches and dropping them off at a shelter. We want to support ideas that are fostering connections between people and helping children to see the impact of their actions.

• A detailed budget is missing. We can't emphasize this enough: The application must detail exactly how the funds will be spent. If this isn't included, the project will not receive funding. Many applicants look up the cost of the items they need and include links to the items in their applications. This is a great way to show that a lot of thought and attention to detail was put into the application. We know that young kids will need help with this, but that's what the supervising adult is for! They should be walking the applicant(s) through the process to ensure their application is as detailed as possible.

• The application includes a request for funds that are benefitting the applicants. Our grants are meant to spread kindness to others. When applicants request money for t-shirts they can wear while carrying out the project, or for snacks to entice kids to participate, we don't fund those projects. All of the funds must go directly towards spreading kindness to other people. We often fund projects that involve food, such as making a meal for a lonely neighbor, or hosting a party for kids who don't get to celebrate their birthdays. But if there is a request for food (or other supplies) for the kids who are carrying out the kind act, we don't fund those requests.

• There is minimal or no interaction between the recipient and the giver of the kindness. While the intent of our grants is to spread kindness to others, we also know that there is a tremendous benefit for the young people who receive funding and carry out the project. Planning and carrying out a kindness project is an empowering experience for children and it can be something that inspires them to make kindness a lifelong habit. We know this is more likely to happen when they have an opportunity to interact with the people to whom they are spreading kindness. Making a meal and dropping it off to a lonely neighbor is one thing. But making that meal, writing a card, and sharing that meal together with the neighbor can foster lasting relationships and a lifelong desire to reach out to lonely or marginalized groups. We want to fund projects that will have a lasting impact on both the grant recipient, and the recipient of the kind act.

• The application is simply requesting funds to purchase items to then donate directly to another organization: We don't want kids to just receive funding to then donate items to another organization. We want them to be the ones spreading kindness directly to other people and making change. Many of our funded grants are purchasing items to give to others. However, when there is an intermediary (another organization) who will actually be distributing the items, we rarely support those kind of projects.

• The project is seeking to spread kindness to animals, not people. Again, this is a worthy cause, and something that our world needs more of. But this is not our organization's focus.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of reasons why some applications aren't funded. We also give a lot of grace to applicants when it is clearly a youth-driven initiative. Sometimes a child clearly puts a lot of time into their application, they are clearly motivated and excited, and they may have touched on one of these pitfalls. We don't expect perfect applications. We are supporting kids after all, and we want this process to be as accessible as possible. But, we share this list with the hope that it will help applicants, and their supervising adults better shape their application so it has the best possible chance of receiving funding.