Communities Know Best
Since the Foundation believes communities are best able to determine their own needs and find solutions to complex social problems, grant funds, to the extent possible, are awarded to community based organizations where the Foundation’s activities are concentrated. In addition, local experts and resources utilized in projects also come from the communities the Foundation serves.

Shared Commitment and Long-Term Partnership
Enhancing the impact of the Foundation’s work requires long-term collaboration with grantees; therefore, the Foundation takes a more comprehensive view of its relationship with grantees. The Foundation provides funding as well as other forms of assistance to its grantees where possible. This may include technical assistance in the form of project development, fundraising, research, and training. The Foundation has allocated funds in addition to those in the grantmaking program to allow grantees to attend training seminars, build their organizational capacity, and to carry out periodic research efforts which may enhance the effectiveness of their programs.

Long-term commitments emerge as a result of a partnership based on trust, understanding, and shared goals. In addition to sharing the goals of the Foundation, grantees demonstrate promise and excellence in their:

• Understanding of and responsiveness to their respective fields;

• Articulation of and commitment to a vision of change;

• Implementation of programs;

• Facilitation of relationships across social divides; and

• Leveraging of other resources (financial, technical, and human), that add value to the Foundation’s grantmaking programs.

Institutional Integrity and Accountability
In recognition of the importance of organizational well-being for the success of grantee programs, the Chrest Foundation believes that:

• Organizations should demonstrate excellence in all areas, honesty in all communications, and personal integrity in all projects the organization is involved with; the Foundation will always try to reciprocate;

• Chrest Foundation’s support should be complemented by other sources of funds;

• Grantees should be registered as a civil society type of organization; and

• Organizations should be transparent in their financial dealings with their financial reporting produced in a professional and systematic manner.

If requested, the Chrest Foundation will offer technical assistance grants to grantees in order to fulfill the last two criteria.

Program Evaluation
The Chrest Foundation believes that evaluating project impact is important to building an organization’s capacity to achieve its goals. The Foundation asks grantees to develop their own evaluation indicators and techniques as part of their proposal, and prepare final reports that reflect on these indicators. This process is meant to serve not only as a measure of project success, but also more importantly as a tool for internal learning and reflection.

• Organization’s name, address, and phone number;
• Contact person;
• Mission of the organization;
• Annual budget amount of the organization; and
• Amount of funding being sought.

And, a one-page summary of the organization’s proposed project describing:

• Who the organization intends to serve;
• What the organization plans to do;
• How the organization intends to achieve it;
• Why the project is needed;
• When - starting and ending dates for the project; and
• What objectives/results the organization intends to achieve.