Grant Declination: Wallace Foundation (National BDPA)

BDPA Education and Technology Foundation worked with National BDPA vice president Paulette Johnson-Davis to submit a letter of inquiry (LOI) to the Wallace Foundation. We wanted permission to seek $18,000 in grant funding from the Wallace Foundation.

Our LOI was turned down. The Wallace Foundation wrote:

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Dear Mr. Hicks:

Thank you for your recent inquiry which we have read with interest. Unfortunately, we cannot be encouraging about the possibility of support. The Foundation’s mission is to improve learning and enrichment opportunities for children. To achieve this, we are focusing on the following goals:

1. Improve the quality of K-12 school leaders;
2. Improve the quality of and access to out-of-school time programs;
3. Provide disadvantaged students with more time for learning during the summer and through an expanded school day;
4. Expand arts learning opportunities for children both in and outside of school.

In each of these areas, we work with school districts, cities and non-profits across the country. Our approach is to select and invest in innovation sites willing to test promising new approaches, commission independent research that could benefit the work in those sites, and capture and share what we’ve learned with others who are interested in pursuing similar changes but who may never receive our direct funding.

Virtually all of the grants we award are made through a competitive process. In most cases, we identify and evaluate prospective grantees through the issuance of requests for proposals or other careful screening processes. While we believe this approach strengthens the effectiveness of our investments, it also means that unsolicited proposals are rarely funded.

We sincerely welcome your continued interest in our work and encourage you to visit our web-based Knowledge Center for free access to a range of knowledge products that you may find useful. Please also sign up for our newsletter. Another resource that may be helpful in locating funding sources is The Foundation Center.

Thank you again for taking the time to inquire about support from the Foundation. We wish you every success in your work.

Sincerely,
Ann Marie Lopez
On behalf of the Grants Administrator

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Although we are disappointed in this outcome we will continue to see out funding for BDPA programs and services on a local, regional and national level in 2012.