Letter of Inquiry

Create an account and/or log in.

If you are new to our system, you will need to create an account in our online grant portal.

If you have applied before, you can log in to your account using your email address and password you created.

If you do not have this information, please email info@thecommunityfund.com or call our Grants Coordinator at 503-879-1637 and we can help you reset your login credentials.

Complete the eligibility quiz.

The next step is a brief eligibility quiz with the following questions:

• Does this request benefit an individual(s) through a scholarship or loan?
• Is your project a fundraising event, short-term conference, concert or event?
• Are you requesting multi-year funding for your project?
• Are you a school district / public school or government agency located OUTSIDE of Polk or Yamhill Counties?
• Do you have an open grant or current grant request with us at this time?
• Are you doing work within our 11-county service area?

If your answer to any of the first 5 questions is Yes, you may not be eligible for our funding. If your answer to the last question is No, you may not be eligible for funding. Please read the questions carefully. If you are given a message that says you are not eligible, and you feel it is an error, please email info@thecommunityfund.com or call our Grants Coordinator at 503-879-1637. If we determine it was an error, our Grants Coordinator will reset your quiz and allow you to submit an LOI.

Complete and submit your LOI.

The Letter of Inquiry, or LOI, is an introduction to your organization and proposal. This is a short form, requiring contact information, a brief description of your organization, a description of your project, some fundraising information and a project budget. You will be asked to submit your project budget using a template that you will need to download, complete and upload back to the LOI. Please do not alter the general formats of our templates.

(Note: Small Grant LOI’s do not require a project budget at this stage.)

Your invitation to submit a full application is based on your LOI; therefore, your project plans must be finalized before you approach us for funding. There should not be any changes to your project once you have submitted your LOI. Please keep in mind that the project description submitted with your LOI will stay with your request through the entire process. When the Board sees a summary of your application (if invited) the LOI description will be included.

Once you have completed and submitted your LOI, you will receive an email confirmation that is has been received.

Wait for Board/Staff Decision.

All LOIs will be reviewed by our Board of Trustees and you will either be invited to submit a full application or be declined at that point. This process will take approximately four weeks from the LOI deadline.

Please be aware that our Small Grant and Large Grant LOIs are extremely competitive. Our staff does not receive feedback from the Board of Trustees about their decisions at the LOI stage.

If you are approved to move forward at the LOI stage, our Grants Coordinator will send you an email with instructions and timelines for submitting your full application.

If your LOI is declined, you may reapply with the same project as soon as the next LOI grant cycle.