Application Instructions
Revised November 2015
General Requirements
Complete proposals are due to the Nancy Buck Ransom Foundation no later than 



For the Spring Cycle: 5:00 pm on the third Friday in February;
For the Fall Cycle: 5:00 pm on the third Friday in August;
Proposals must be received no later than the due date and time, whether by email or
post; please note that large envelopes often take several extra days in the mail;
Late proposals are not accepted for any reason.
A complete proposal consists of:





The Grant Application form with all required questions answered (see Sections A & B);
AND properly signed (see Section E);
AND all appropriate requested documents - the right information for the appropriate time
frame (see Section C);
AND with reporting current for any previous grant(s) (See Section D).
Incomplete proposals will not be reviewed.
Please proofread your application.
There is no difference in the proposal requirements between the two cycles. Decisions are made
in late April and late October.
An organization may apply once per calendar year. If your proposal is formally declined in
the spring cycle, you may apply again in the following calendar year. If your proposal is not
accepted for the spring cycle because it is incomplete or late, you have not actually applied;
therefore you are again eligible in the fall.
The preferred format is one continuous PDF, containing all required documents and
signatures, in the order requested, emailed to grants@nbrfoundation.org.




For legibility in a PDF, font size should be at least 11.
If a single PDF is not possible, do not email separate documents; mail your proposal on
paper to Nancy Buck Ransom Foundation, PO Box 749, Monterey, CA 93942.
Do not bind your application, or use staples, or put it in a folder.
Faxed proposals cannot be accepted due to the issue of legibility.
All applications will be responded to in the order received. We do not send automatic
receipts. We will only respond after we have checked your application for completeness.
Because of the number of applications we receive, allow seven business days to hear from us; if
you have not heard by then, please do contact us.
Specific Application Questions
A. Organization Information
1. Your organization’s legal name is the one on your determination letter and your
990. If you do business under another name or abbreviation, list it after your legal
name: “Central Coast Children dba CCC.”
2. Date Established is the date you received your 501c3 exemption status.
3. Your board-approved mission statement – one paragraph or less.
4. We cannot make grants to organizations unless the IRS considers donations to
them to be charitable. We will verify your status with the IRS. If you are not a
501c3 you may have a 501c3 agency apply on your behalf as your Fiscal Sponsor
(see 10, below).
5. The physical address is where we would go if a site visit is indicated. Your mailing
address is where a grant, if approved, should be sent.
6. The organization’s telephone, not the contact’s cell phone.
7. This is the person to whom the grant letter will be addressed and should be the
CEO, Executive Director, or comparable position. If there is no staff, this should
be the Board Chair.
10. A Fiscal Sponsor is a 501c3 which applies on behalf of, and accepts financial and
reporting responsibility for, the proposed activities of a non-501c3 organization or
informal group. A grant, if approved, will be made payable to the Fiscal Sponsor;
the sponsored agency, although understood to be a separate entity, should be
shown as a “program” of the sponsor on the application.
B. Proposal Information
1. The contact person should be the person who can answer questions regarding the
content of the proposal. It is not necessarily the proposal writer or the person
mailing the application.
2. Monterey County grants usually range between $5,000 and $50,000, but cannot
be over half a program budget or one-third of an operating budget, because of
concern for sustainability. We will consider requests for full funding of small, onetime projects.
3. You will check just one of these boxes:
a) If you are applying for a program (ongoing), name only one specific program;
please do not lump multiple separate activities together and call them (for
example) “Youth Program.” Include the program budget total.
b) This category is for one-time projects which can be completed within a year.
Include the project budget total.
c) We provide operating support only to exclusively youth-serving organizations.
We do not fund capital projects, capacity building, or sponsorships.
4. If you are applying for operating support, leave this question blank.
C. Additional Documents
1. This narrative should clearly show who you are, what you do*, how our funding
would be used, why it will make a difference to your organization, who will benefit,
and in what way. We are looking for a good fit with both your mission and ours;
our guidelines are listed on our web site.
 Question c.iv should be expressed in whatever units you normally measure:
individuals, families, classrooms
 Question c.v refers to the extent to which the client is involved in the
provided service; for example,
 “an hour of one-on-one instruction in… each weekday during the
school year”
 “a two-hour, one-time presentation of…”
 “Tutoring in… as needed, but not less than three afternoons per
month”
 “a seven-day summer day camp consisting of…”
 Question c.vi, Results, should tell us not only what you hope to achieve,
but how you will know you have achieved it. What will success look like? By
what measurements will you recognize it and report on it?
If you are applying for Operating Support, the questions in C.1.c should be
answered for your organization as a whole, and should describe the effects you
expect the requested funding will have, specifically, on the youth you serve.
*If you have never received a grant from us before – please add a short description
of how you are determining success in your current project(s).
3. If your organization has no paid staff, we still would like to know who is doing the
work. You may include significant volunteers or board members.
4. The program/project budget should show both expected income and expected
expense for the project, and what this grant would be applied to. It is not required
for Operational Support proposals.
5. We ask for various financial reports to get not only a current picture of your
agency’s financial health, but to see trends over time. Thus, if your fiscal year has
just ended, and you don’t yet have year-to-date figures for your current fiscal year,
you would satisfy 5a and 5b by providing the Balance Sheet and Income
Statement for the just-completed fiscal year, plus the balance sheets for the two
preceding years.
The person listed as the contact (B.1) should be familiar enough with the
financials to insure that we receive the appropriate documents and to be able to
answer questions which may arise. See the definitions below.
We do not ask for audits and ask that the financials not be a mixture of audited
and unaudited reports, because of the difficulty of determining trends through
dissimilar documents.
Definitions of the reports:
a. The Balance Sheet is a snapshot of assets and liabilities at the end of
the reporting period. It is also called the Statement of Financial
Position.
b. The Income Statement is a record of income and expenses during the
reporting period. The accounts or categories used should align with
those in the organizational budget. It can also be called the Profit &
Loss Statement or the Statement of Financial Activity.
c. The organizational budget is for the current year and should show
expected income (including other grants applied for) as well as
expected expenses
6. A memorandum of understanding between the Fiscal Sponsor and the sponsored
organization will show the nature, scope and allocation of the activities, and the
intended duration and outcome.
D. Evaluation of Prior Grants
If we have never funded you before, this section does not apply, but see the Narrative
instructions.
If you have completed the activities funded by a prior grant, and have not already sent in
your evaluation, include it with this application. The form is available on our web site.
If you are applying again for the same purpose, we will always require a final evaluation –
all funds spent, and accounted for – before considering a new application for that same
purpose. This means you may not have a full year for the activities to be completed. In
case your project requires a full year or more, remember that we have two grant cycles
each year from which you may choose.
If you have not yet completed the activities, and are applying for a different purpose,
please provide a brief narrative progress report, with approximate expenditures to date,
and estimated completion date. We will still expect the final report at the appropriate
time.
If your grant was for operating support, we will always require a final evaluation before
you apply again for any purpose.
Check your grant award letter for any additional reporting requirements which may have
been requested.
You may send your evaluation as soon as the activities are completed, or include it with
your next application. You cannot apply saying “we will get the evaluation to you later.”
As noted above, “complete application” also means that all reporting is up to date.
E. Agreement and Signatures
We ask for two signatures – one staff, and one board – to let us know that both staff and
board are cognizant of, and responsible for, this proposal.
The signatures should be made on the form itself. Signatures cut and pasted – or scanned
and inserted - from another document are not acceptable. They are not sufficient to show
that the “signer” has seen this document. An application which is not adequately signed
is incomplete.
If you are unable to scan a signed document, applications on paper are still acceptable;
see page 1.
The staff signature should be that of the CEO, ED, or comparable position – not a
consultant or proposal writer. If the organization has no paid staff, the “authorized
representative” is the board treasurer.
Still have questions? We’re here to help. Grants@nbrfoundation.org.