The Lloyd A. Fry Foundation makes grants in the following broad fields: education, community services, arts and culture, and health. We make grants only to tax-exempt organizations and rarely fund organizations outside Chicago. We give priority to proposals for the initiation of new programs or strategic enhancements to existing programs rather than for general support of ongoing programs.

Letters of Inquiry

If you are seeking support for the first time or if you are a returning grantee seeking support for a new program, we highly recommend that you send us a letter of inquiry before you submit a full proposal. A letter of inquiry will allow you to get preliminary feedback from us concerning your request and its potential fit within our funding priorities. Letters of inquiry should include a brief description of the proposed project, a project budget, and other projected sources of support.

Proposal Procedures

We do not use a grant application form; we accept proposals of varying length that adhere to the procedures described below. Although we accept the Chicago Area Common Grant Application form distributed by the Donors Forum of Chicago, we consider this application a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, a full proposal.

For new and renewal requests, full proposals should contain the following elements:

1. A brief history of your organization, including a general statement of its primary functions and goals.
   
   
2. A program description which includes:
   
   a statement of the need to be addressed and the population to be served; a description of how the planned project will address the identified need; clearly stated goals and objective plans for assessing and reporting the results and impact of the project's activities (for further information, see Outcomes and Assessments); a timeline for project activities.
   
   
3. An income and expense budget for the project.
   
   
4. Your organization's operating budget with income and expense projections that pertain to the fiscal year in which the project will take place.
   
   
5. A list of current and projected funding sources and amounts (government, corporate and foundation sources) for both your organization and the project, for the fiscal year in which the program will take place.
   
   
6. A copy of your organization's most recent audited financial report.
   
   
7. A list of board members and their affiliations.
   
   
8. A list of professional staff of the organization and resumes of key personnel involved in the project.
   
   
9. A copy of the organization's 501(c)(3) tax exemption letter from the Internal Revenue Service.
   
   
10. Proposals for organizational capacity building activities that involve outside consultants should include a copy of the consultant's resume and a list of clients.
    
    
11. Returning grantees must submit a full narrative and financial report on the previous grant before a new request is considered. We ask that final reports and proposals be submitted under separate cover. For more information on this subject, see our grant reporting requirements.

The Board of Directors meets quarterly to consider requests for grants. These meetings are held in February, May, August and November. We must receive your proposal by 5:00 p.m. on the following dates in order to review it at the following board meeting:

Board Meeting	Proposal Deadline
February	December 1
May	March 1
August	June 1
November	September 1

In the event that a deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, requests may be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on the following business day. With two exceptions, we review grant requests representing all of the Foundation's fields of interest at each quarterly meeting. We review proposals for theater outreach in May only, and consider legal services requests at the November meeting only.

Proposals and letters of inquiry should be sent to:

Jill Darrow Seltzer
Executive Director
Lloyd A. Fry Foundation
120 S. LaSalle Suite 1950
Chicago, IL 60603