Funding Opportunities

This program provides affordable funding to develop essential community facilities in rural areas. An essential community facility is defined as a facility that provides an essential service to the local community for the orderly development of the community in a primarily rural area, and does not include private, commercial or business undertakings.

This program helps eligible communities prepare, or recover from, an emergency that threatens the availability of safe, reliable drinking water.

Thomas Jefferson observed that "the ground of liberty is won by inches." The Norman Foundation seeks to help win some of those precious inches. We support efforts that strengthen the ability of communities to determine their own economic, environmental and social well-being, and that help people control those forces that affect their lives. These efforts may:

promote economic justice and development through community organizing, coalition building and policy reform efforts;
work to prevent the disposal of toxics in communities, and to link environmental issues with economic and social justice;
link community-based economic and environmental justice organizing to national and international reform efforts.

We will consider the following in evaluating grant proposals:

Does the project arise the hopes and efforts of those whose survival, well-being and liberation are directly at stake?
Does it further ethnic, gender and other forms of equity?
Is it rooted in organized, practical undertakings?
Is it likely to achieve systemic change?

De Colores Rapid Response Fund (RRF) has been established at PDF in honor of retired Development Officer, Ray Santiago. In his many years working in the farmworker movement, “De Colores,” a traditional Mexican folk song that celebrates nature and diversity, was and still is one of Ray’s favorite tunes. It is a great example of solidarity.

Ray recalls, “If I remember correctly, the song came to the Americas from Spain back in the 16th or 17th century. The song became very popular within the Latino community for special celebrations and occasions. It became the anthem of the United Farm Workers in California in the early 1960s. In time, it became the anthem of the larger farmworker movement, including the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in the Midwest, Florida and Texas. We would cross arms and sing it at rallies and picket lines. It’s a very uplifting song and always brought comfort to me.”

De Colores RRF is looking to impact positive, dynamic-shifting opportunities, rather than provide emergency response for humanitarian crises or technical assistance. It is designed to make funds available for quick, short-term delivery to hot spots of opportunity for organizing in marginalized urban and rural communities.

Through this program, NADBank offers grants to support the implementation of critical environmental infrastructure projects for economically distressed communities in the U.S.-Mexico border region. CAP grants may be used for:

- Project construction and related costs
- Project management and supervision
- Equipment purchase
- Other project components
- Emergency repairs

This program offers grant financing exclusively for the implementation of high-priority municipal drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects located within 100 kilometers of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The objective of the program is to make water infrastructure projects affordable by combining grant funds with loans and other forms of financing. It is designed to reduce project debt to a manageable level in cases where utility customers would face undue financial hardship and projects could not otherwise be implemented.

BEIF funds may be used to support projects that serve a single community or regional approaches that serve multiple communities and/or outlying areas.

Asterion Foundation™ provides microgrants for astronomy research and outreach projects throughout the United States. Asterion supports schools, universities, libraries, planetaria, observatories, museums and science clubs. Grants typically range between $500 and $5,000. Some awards are partial grants for lead sponsorship, matching fundraisers and finishing funds.

By their own initiative, past and present directors of the foundation have propelled special outreach programs such as the distribution of free solar eclipse glasses and the 50th Anniversary Apollo Moon Landing poster contest for students. Your organization can also apply to fund projects such as these. Do you have a project that we can help lift off?

Many of our previous grant recipients have been involved in the topic of meteoritics, such as meteorite exhibits at museums, all-night meteor camera detectors (CAMS), and paleo-astronomy through the study of microtektites in fossilized mollusks. In 2019, our directors voted to make the area of meteoritics our chief interest. However, we will gladly review other applications pertaining to astronomy research and outreach.

Recreational Trails Program (RTP) Grants

The Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Fund is generated from Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) Decal sales and gas tax revenues. These funds provide opportunities for OHV education, outreach, trail building, trail maintenance, law enforcement, signage, support facility development, as well as emergency repairs and vandalism prevention.

The Heritage Fund provides grant opportunities for trail projects, outdoor environmental education programs, local, regional, and state parks, as well as historic preservation projects through legislatively appropriated funds.