What We Fund

Robins Foundation supports a broad range of projects that improve the lives and opportunities of residents of the Richmond region. While the Foundation has a special interest in early childhood development and organization building, grantmaking continues to support a wide variety of community enhancing projects.

We will consider grants for program support, operating support, capacity building, capital and endowment expenditures. Our grantmaking seeks to strengthen the organizations we support, and to encourage collaboration. We favor projects that will have a lasting impact, and that bring people and resources together to meet compelling needs.

Click on News and Publications for links to our recent funding information.

Responsive Grants

Our responsive grantmaking program is the only grantmaking program for which applicants may apply without invitation from the Foundation.  Eligible organizations may apply through our preliminary proposal process twice per year in January and July.  Based on our Board’s assessment of these preliminary proposals, selected organizations will be invited to submit full proposals following our March and September Board meetings.  March invitations will be considered for funding at our June Board meeting, and September invitations will be considered for funding at our December board meeting.  See How to Apply for more details.

Responsive grantmaking is generally limited to the Richmond metropolitan area.  The Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals from other areas.  The Richmond metropolitan area consists of the cities of Richmond, Petersburg, Hopewell and Colonial Heights and the nine surrounding counties of Charles City, Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, New Kent, Powhatan and Prince George.

Strategic Organization Strengthening Activities

We believe that nonprofit organizations, in order to succeed, must be participating members of a strong community of leaders.  We use a number of tools to support leadership development, collaboration and the strengthening of resources throughout the nonprofit sector.  Examples include:

  • The support of organization strengthening and capacity building efforts through our responsive grantmaking.
  • Occasionally, when a need is perceived, we invite a grantee to take advantage of a small pool of Professional Development Mini-grant funds to strengthen staff and board leadership.
  • From time to time, we may support local organizations that provide opportunities for nonprofit professional development, such as University of Richmond Institute of Philanthropy, and Partnership for Nonprofit Excellence.
  • We are currently piloting a Strategic Partnership program for selected organizations that find themselves at catalytic moments in their organizational development.  The program provides long-term (three to five year) operating and organization building support that helps these organizations move to the next level.  This is a by-invitation-only initiative that is presently fully subscribed. Four organizations are in our pilot class:
    • Communities In Schools of Richmond
    • James River Association
    • Fit4Kids
    • The Partnership for Families Northside

Focus on Early Childhood Development

Believing that reaching children early in life is the best way to ensure long-term success, the Foundation, in 2000, made a commitment to give special consideration to early childhood development initiatives.

We became the founding investor in the Partnership for Families Northside (PFFN) in 2004, a “place-based” collaborative partnership of organizations that serve young children and their families.

In 2010, PFFN opened the Family Learning Center at 800 W. Graham Road in Northside.  This LEED Gold, state-of-the-art facility offers a Virginia Star Quality Initiative Four Star Rated childcare center, adult education classrooms, shared office space and multipurpose space to support the needs of the varied partners who share the vision of helping every child in north Richmond enter kindergarten healthy and emotionally, mentally and socially ready to learn.

The Partnership is currently engaged in an extensive strategic and business planning effort to assess best practices in the field, and adjust their already successful program to even more strategically serve families of young children in the Northside of Richmond.

Based on the belief that supporting early childhood development is a shared community goal, PFFN is now focusing on becoming self-sustaining by developing and broadening its funding base.  For more information visit PFFN’s website:  www.kidsreadytolearn.org

Director Initiated Grants

Each year, each member of our Board of Directors is given the opportunity to sponsor a limited number of grants to organizations that they consider particularly deserving of support.  These recommendations are strictly at the discretion of individual Board members.  Organizations may not solicit Board members for these funds.