Possibility Grants

2023 Grants

Our hope with these grants is to support youth working to transform the future to be joyful and just. We are particularly interested in hearing from youth who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), and/or Queer, Transgender, and Gender Non-Conforming (QTGNC), and from communities impacted by gentrification in Alameda and San Francisco counties.

Designed and decided by youth, the Possibility Grants are general operating grants of $100,000 per organization. Selected organizations need to be 501(c)3 entities to receive the funds. Fiscally sponsored projects are eligible. We are prioritizing smaller organizations whose organizational or youth organizing program budget is equal to or under $500,000 annually.

Instructions for the nomination form

You can use the downloadable Microsoft Word template of the nomination form to read all the questions and draft your answers. However, note that you will not be sending the Word document. Instead, you will complete a nomination form online.

To fill out the nomination form, you have to go online here. You cannot save your answers when filling out the nomination form online, so you should have all of your answers ready to cut and paste into the form.

Who you are

BAY Fellows encourage and have a preference for nominations from youth, up to age 24, who have experience with the organization being nominated. You may have benefited from or taken part in the organization’s work as a past or current participant. You may have worked at the organization, or you may have been an intern there. Friends or someone in your family may be a participant; so, you are familiar with the organization’s work through a close association.

Things you will need for your nomination

1. Testimonials from two or more youth participants of the organization (see section one, question four)
2. Information from the organization you are nominating (see section two, questions seven to eleven; see section three)
3. Your thoughtful responses on why you care about the organization, how it has changed you, and why they matter to your community. 

Nomination form outline

Section One – Storytelling

• The focus in this section is telling the story of what this organization means to you and your community, and why you are bringing them to our attention for support.
• This section includes six open-ended questions for you to share some stories from yourself and from youth participating in the organization. Four questions are required, and two are optional.
• This section requires answers either in writing or by video submission. You will need to gather responses to one question from two or three youth in the organization.

Section Two – Contact information

• The purpose in this section is to gather information so we can contact you and the organization.
• This section includes 11 informational questions about you (the nominator) and the organization.
• For two of the questions you will need information from the organization. While we would like to get responses for everything in this section, we know that you might not be able to get answers to all the questions we ask. That’s fine: we’ll follow up with the organization if we need to learn more.

Section Three – Criteria for Possibility Grants

• The focus in this section helps us understand if the organization meets most or all of our criteria for the grants.
• This section includes nine “Yes” or “No” questions that reflect our criteria.
• This section requires answers that are either “Yes,” “No,” or numerical. You may need to talk to the organization to get their answers to some questions.

Section Four – About the BAY Fellows and their values

• The focus here is to help you understand where this grant opportunity is coming from, who is behind it, and what we care about.
• This section includes information about the BAY Fellows and the values we hold.
• This section is informational and does not require any answers.

The nomination form is directly tied to our values. It is also short so that you do not spend too much time working on it. If you choose to submit answers in Section One by video, we encourage you to focus on the content of what you’re sharing, and not the media production.

Here is the online nomination form.

Timeline

• The nomination window is open from June 12th to July 14th, 2023.
• We will reach out to ten organizations after July 17th to learn more about them through site visits/interviews.
• Site visits and interviews will be scheduled for a time during August.
• We will make five general operating grants by October 2023.

Questions?

Please reach out to our staff contact, Pui Ling Tam, at [email protected].