Program Basics

You can apply for a Community Innovation Grant of $500 to $10,000 from The Consensus Council only during the open grant period.

The grant periods for 2020 are:

January 2, 2020 @ 8am –  February 3, 2020 @ 5pm

May 21, 2020 @ 8am – June 22, 2020 @ 5pm

September 3, 2020 @ 8am –  October 5, 2020 @ 5pm

• For grants over $10,000, Community Innovation Grants are available directly from the Bush Foundation.

• We look to you to identify and define your community. This could be a geographic community (e.g., a neighborhood, town, state or Native nation) and it could be a community of common interest or racial/cultural identity.

• We are open to projects that address all sorts of community needs. In addition, projects can be at various stages of the problem-solving process including identifying the need, increasing collective understanding of the issue, generating ideas, or testing and implementing solutions. Proposals can focus on one area or span multiple stages.

• The Consensus Council and the Bush Foundation are committed to addressing racial and economic disparities. At least 50% of Community Innovation grants will be given to projects that address these disparities. For the purposes of this grant program, we define this as proposals that seek to actively reduce structural and/or systemic gaps in access, outcomes, opportunities or treatment based on race/ethnicity or economic standing.

• We will favor/prioritize proposals with project budget sizes that are of appropriate scale to this $500-$10,000 grant opportunity.

• Consensus Council staff will work with grantees to agree on the appropriate grant period for their project. Timelines for the grants are flexible – some may take several months while others might take longer. As a general guideline, we prefer that projects be completed in 1 year or less. The project can be a phase of a multi-year initiative.