Spruce Grant FAQs

The application for the 2023 grant cycle will go live at the end of January 2023.

Once the application is live, you can find the grant application by visiting https://www.sprucefoundation.org/ and clicking the “Apply for a Grant” button at the top of the page.

All applications and supplemental materials are due on Monday, March 27, 2023 by 5:00 pm. Please be sure to submit all materials in a timely manner. No exceptions will be made to the 5:00 pm deadline.

The Spruce Foundation will send out announcements about the status of your application between late April and early May 2023.

No, site visits are not conducted during the application process.

If your organization receives a grant from the Spruce Foundation, we anticipate that our partnership will include:

1. Attendance at our grantee recognition event (date TBD – anticipated for mid-June 2023), including potentially showing a short video for event attendees.
2. High-resolution logo and high-resolution photos.
3. Mid-year and final reports. 

The exact expectations of our partnership will be outlined in the grant agreement.

No, however, eligible applicants must serve youth within Philadelphia County.

Yes, you may apply for a Spruce Foundation grant if you provide services to youth in Philadelphia. The budget for the local Philadelphia chapter/office should be included with your application, and must meet our budget requirements. You must demonstrate in your application and budget that services and funding will support ONLY Philadelphia programming/operations.

Previous awardees and prior applicants are welcome to reapply for a Spruce Foundation grant.

As a general requirement, all applicants must have a total organizational budget of $800,000 or less. This change was first instituted in the 2017-2018 grantmaking cycle, and will continue in the current cycle. Applicant organizations do not need to focus exclusively on youth; however, 75% or more of the organization’s operations must be dedicated to youth-serving activities. 

Yes, an organization can apply for a grant if it does not have 501(c)3 status but is supported by a fiscal sponsor. You will be asked to share information about your fiscal sponsor on the application.  The budget limitations apply to the fiscally-sponsored organization, not to the fiscal sponsor.  Make sure to include your budget, not that of the fiscal sponsor, with your application.  The DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) information should also be reported for the fiscally-sponsored organization; it is not necessary to include this information for the fiscal sponsor. Note: A fiscal sponsor is a nonprofit organization that provides fiduciary oversight, financial management, and other administrative services to help build the capacity of charitable projects.

We expect all applicants (and/or their fiscal sponsors) to maintain appropriate statuses with relevant federal, state and local entities. This expectation includes IRS status and filings, as well as ALL state-mandated clearances for youth-serving employees and volunteers.

Spruce defines youth as individuals 21 and under.

Yes, if the fiscally sponsored project is a nonprofit with their own operating budget under $800,000 and has a separate tax ID.

The Spruce Foundation trains a committee of board members and volunteers to review each application. Applications are evaluated according to a comprehensive rubric that covers the following:

• Serving Philadelphia youth directly.
• Community need: clearly defined, using concrete examples and in alignment with strategies/program objectives.
• Community impact: examples of long-lasting impact and a vision for use of grant funds for sustainability.
• Idea viability: evidence of utilization of best practices and potential success.
• Program evaluation: specific activities and measures built into the program.
• Financial sustainability: clear plans to sustain organization beyond Spruce grant.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: how your organization incorporates the diversity of the Philadelphia community.

A strong application will outline a proposal that includes the following:

• A locally focused project directly serving Philadelphia youth.
• Clear strategy for engaging your community.
• Long-term impact on beneficiaries, including quantitative and qualitative data as available.
• Clear, specific evaluation approach, including quantitative and qualitative measures as available.
• Detailed line item budget, with additional sources of support outlined.

The Spruce Foundation has an organizational commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).  Throughout the application process, we will ask questions that require you to think honestly and engage meaningfully about disparities that exist in your organization and community and how your work addresses those disparities.

DEI responses are intended to foster thought and engagement around the topics of diversity, equity, and inclusion. These responses were first collected in 2019-2020, and at that time were not scored, but instead used to provide valuable insight about our potential grantees’ capacity to address the issues of DEI in our community. Beginning with the 2020-2021 grant cycle, these responses are now factored into the scoring process.

Information about our grantees can be found here: https://www.sprucefoundation.org/grants/grantees/

Your organization’s 990 must be from within 2 years of the application deadline (i.e. No earlier than March 27, 2021).

The Spruce Foundation is interested in both quantitative and qualitative data, as available, when reviewing both the impact of programming and future evaluation plans. For example, a strong application may include that according to test scores, 75% of youth served increased literacy skills, as well as anecdotes that they started to enjoy reading more.

The application has a “save” feature. However, we still strongly recommend that you download a copy of the questions (available on our website) and type your answers there. Then you can copy and paste your answers into the appropriate boxes on the application and attach supplementary materials.

We recommend downloading a local copy of the application and completing your application in a separate Word document. When you are ready to submit, you can copy and paste your answers into the appropriate places on the application. We recommend using Google Chrome to submit your application. Please ensure that you have the most recent version of Chrome installed on your computer. Additionally, please review the file size limits for supplemental material. We strongly encourage applicants to apply before the deadline in order to avoid technical difficulties.

If you continue to have technical issues with your application, please email grants@sprucefoundation.org. The Spruce Foundation will not accept applications timestamped after 5:00 pm on March 27, 2023.

You can access the template here. Please email grants@sprucefoundation.org if you continue to have issues accessing the document.

No, you do not have to use the Spruce budget template. Please upload an organizational budget, a budget that clearly outlines how you would spend the $5,000 grant, and a list of any other sources of financial support. If you do not have your own budget documents, please click here to download Spruce Foundation’s Grant budget template. Make sure to fill out all tabs.

Please send any application questions to grants@sprucefoundation.org. Please note, we are an all volunteer organization and will make every effort to respond to inquiries within 48 hours. We appreciate your patience, especially as the grant application deadline approaches. 

You can also bring your questions to one of our scheduled virtual information sessions on February 13 and March 13, 2023. Find more information and register for a session on our website (https://www.sprucefoundation.org/events).