Weekly Funding Opportunity: John Lee Hooker Foundation

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Each week, Neighborhood Networks provides potential funding sources to help centers develop and improve programs and services. Featured this week is the John Lee Hooker Foundation.

Program Areas: The foundation focuses its grantmaking on community-based, grassroots organizations that work with children and youth, especially those at risk and disadvantaged due to poor health, illiteracy, or insufficient educational and cultural opportunities. JLHF focuses on helping children and youth live:

	Healthy lives through education and prevention.
	Literate lives through learning.
	Culturally enriched lives through arts education.

Creative programs that serve underrepresented and underprivileged children and youth take precedence.

Targeted Area: Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and West. (Note: The foundation funds on a national basis, but does place some emphasis on the San Francisco Bay area.)

Eligibility: The foundation awards grants in the United States only to nonprofit organizations with Internal Revenue Service 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status.

The foundation does not award grants for capital campaigns; scholarships; individual trips or tours; video, music, television, or film productions; fundraising; or sporting events.

Award Amount: Award amounts range from $2,500 to $5,000.

Application Process: The first step in the application process is to call the foundation office for a telephone screening of your grant project at (209) 835-7949 or e-mail a one-page summary of the project to the foundation.

Include the following information in the summary:

	Brief project description including geographic area.
	Project traits and features that make it unique.
	Overall operating budget (bottom line) from parent organization.
	Project budget.
	Photos/video/CD, if available.
	Contact person and phone number.

If the foundation is interested in pursuing and evaluating the project more thoroughly, it will request additional information and a full application. A site visit or meeting may be scheduled.

Typically a one-year project will require a report at the end of the grant or in connection with a final installment payment. The foundation also reserves the right to conduct its own evaluation of any project supported by foundation funds. Photographs with releases for the foundation's use in Web site, video, and other media are also part of the final report.

Deadlines: Ongoing. The board of directors meets three times a year to review final candidates for each funding cycle. The board will select proposals for funding that most effectively address the foundation's mission and issues to which the board has given priority.

Contact: For more information about the John Lee Hooker Foundation, contact:

John Lee Hooker Foundation
P.O. Box 29023
Oakland, CA 94604
(510) 568-4561