TCI exists to provide philanthropic support to nonprofit organizations and community coalitions.  We support community-based projects in Iowa, Illinois, Colorado, and Oklahoma. Our funding priorities focus around social drivers of health. Specifically, we want to focus our work around advancing effective beginning of life (healthy birth outcomes) and building parenting resiliency. Our RFP describes the types of projects we are looking to support in 2025.

Telligen Community Initiative grants are typically not available to or for the following:

• Organizational indirect costs
• Religious or sectarian organizations for religious purposes
• Capital campaigns
• Deficit reduction or retirement of debt
• General endowments
• Real estate/land acquisitions
• Political projects
• Vehicles
• Athletics or athletic events
• Grants to individuals
• Fundraising events (sponsorships)
• For projects that the sole purpose is redistributing the awarded funds

On TCI’s website, you’ll be able to access a full Request for Proposals (RFP) document when we have an active, upcoming grant cycle. These documents will lay out proposal timelines and expected funding decision dates.

Yes. In 2024, approximately two-thirds of our entire applicant pool contacted TCI staff to discuss some facet of their proposal prior to submission. This could take the form of a face-to-face meeting, phone meeting, email conversation, review of a draft proposal, or other desired assistance in helping you or your coalition consider an application. Making contact is not a requirement and your proposal won’t be helped or hurt in the scoring process for having a pre-submission discussion (or not). Staff is in place to help you create as competitive a proposal as possible to compete for limited funding support. Consider how you want to use them.

To request a grant, your organization must be a recognized as a federally tax-exempt section 501(c)(3) charitable organization, an accredited school, or a public/governmental agency located in the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa or Oklahoma.

Note: a public agency is an organization established and primarily funded by a unit of government. Examples could include a public school, public library, local public health department or state governmental agency. Note that TCI does not fund organizations with a pending 501(c)(3) status.

TCI accepts grant requests from organizations (see above) that are in the communities where TCI has determined it would offer philanthropic support. This includes projects within the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa and Oklahoma. In terms of geographic focus, it is really in the hands of the applicant/applicant coalition to define your geographic focus. Some projects focus on an entire state, a collection of counties, a single county, city, or even a defined neighborhood or census tract(s). Please also know that some projects choose to focus and define themselves around a targeted population that may not be a defined as a geographic focus within a region. All the above represent potential ways to position your planning and grant request. If you have an eligibility question, please always feel free to contact TCI staff to discuss your specific situation.

Again, you’ll be able to access a full Request for Proposals (RFP) document when we have an active, upcoming grant cycle. These documents will lay out proposal timelines and expected funding decision dates. Once outside of those timeframes, you’ll have to wait until a future grant offering to make a request. We cannot entertain grant requests for review outside of our established grant competitions.

Successfully launched in 2020, TCI utilizes a grant application portal to make the process of applying that might more succinct and straightforward. There is a full portal application guidance section, but you’ll find it to be very intuitive and user-friendly. This move has been made at the request of numerous applicants who felt this would represent a process improvement for TCI to consider.

TCI grants are non-transferable. If a grant was provided to an organization/fiscal agent, the grant may not be transferred to a new organization/fiscal agent. As long as the recipient organization/grantee can administer the project as described in the approved grant, then the grant should stay at that organization. If they are no longer able or willing to administer the grantee obligations, then the grant funding will be returned to TCI. We commit to work with the applicant/applicant coalition to attempt to honor the continuance core work funded whenever possible on case-by-case circumstances and basis.

Immediately after completing and submitting your grant application in our portal you’ll receive a confirmation email that will include a timestamp of receipt, an assigned proposal number, as well as an electronic version of your submission to TCI. Beyond the system generated confirmation, TCI staff will be in touch with the applicant (via your proposal contact person’s email) to share overall grant cycle response and next steps in our process after the deadline. Always feel free to contact TCI staff if you have questions regarding the status of your proposal – particularly as we transition to this new proposal submission process online.

With our funding this year we are beginning to financially support selected projects in two-year (24-month) award periods to allow for longer and larger funding support for community impact. They’ll be a brief reporting requirements during and after your project period.  TCI is committed to making that reporting meaningful and less cumbersome.  Beginning in 2025, this will include oral reporting/interviews by staff – again to minimize nonprofit time on reporting on your grant support.  We are excited about attempting new and less intense ways to honor the time of our grantee and be able to learn from the implementation of your projects.

TCI staff can offer summaries of previously funded proposals so you can see what was successful in a previous cycle. Staff is also able to share TCI dashboard information so you can see characteristics of the most recent applicant field versus what was ultimately funded/offered a grant. This is all in an effort to arm you with as much information as you’d like to complete an informed and competitive project. Please always feel comfortable reaching out to TCI staff to discuss your project ideas and learn more about upcoming and emerging funding opportunities.