Cummings $30 Million Grant Program

Local Grant Program

Enjoy this inspiring highlight reel from Cummings Foundation’s 2024 Grant Winner Celebration, held at TradeCenter 128 in Woburn.

Cummings Foundation has awarded more than $500 million to date in greater Boston. In 2025, it will grant an additional $30 million. These funds will be shared by 150 local-area nonprofits and will be awarded as multi-year grants, to be paid over either three or 10 years.

Before beginning a proposal, please carefully review the information below. It may be helpful to pay particular attention to the changes for the 2025 grant cycle. Applicants are also encouraged to read the comprehensive FAQ page.

2024-2025 Application Process and Timeline

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*Important notices about letters of inquiry and applications are sent via email. To decrease the likelihood of missing such emails, applicants are encouraged to check their spam folders regularly for emails from administrator@grantinterface.com or an @cummings.com address.

Geographic Funding Areas

The Cummings $30 Million Grant Program is a place-based initiative that primarily supports nonprofits in the Massachusetts counties where Cummings Foundation operates commercial properties and where most staff and clients of Cummings Foundation and Cummings Properties live:

• Essex County
• Middlesex County
• Suffolk County
• The Norfolk County communities of: Brookline, Dedham, Milton, Needham, Quincy, and Wellesley.

Cummings aims to support truly local organizations. Accordingly, an applicant must:

• Be headquartered in the geographic areas listed above
• Provide the majority of its services in the geographic areas listed above.
• Not maintain offices or provide services outside Massachusetts (with the exception of Merrimack Valley nonprofits that also serve Southern New Hampshire)
• Not be regional, national, or international (even if based locally)
• Not be a local office/affiliate of a regional or national organization, unless it has its own EIN

All funding requests should focus exclusively on operations within geographic areas listed above.

Special consideration is given to nonprofits based in the 11 cities and towns where the Cummings organization operates commercial real estate. The Foundation may also give such consideration to organizations that are based elsewhere in the priority geographic area and propose introducing programming or services in one or more of these 11 communities, especially Woburn.

Priority Funding Causes

The Cummings $30 Million Grant Program funds a wide variety of local causes related to:

• Human services

  housing and food security, anti-poverty, disabilities, employment training, immigrant/refugee assistance, legal assistance, senior citizens, strong families/communities, youth activities/services



• Social justice

  equity, anti-hate, opportunity gap remediation, representation



• Education

  K-12/college, mentoring/tutoring, out-of-school time, complementary programs



• Healthcare

  hospitals/clinics, mental health



• The Environment

  environmental education, equitable access to outdoor spaces, recycling/waste reduction, sustainable agriculture and food systems (This program does not currently consider requests for research, land preservation, and large capital projects)

This grant program is not currently considering requests related to the causes below, although we recognize their value and importance.

• The arts (including dance, music, and theater)
• Culture
• The preservation of land or historic buildings
• Animal welfare (Please consider the Felicia Rose Grant Program.)

Eligibility

The Cummings $30 Million Grant Program will not generally consider requests for:**

• Endowments
• Medical research
• Private foundations
• Religious endeavors
• Relatively new entities
• Political, legislative, or lobbying organizations
• Individuals or debt reduction, no matter how worthy
• Major capital campaigns, unless very near completion
• Primary and secondary schools that charge significant tuition
• Very large organizations already supported by robust endowments
• Organizations that seek to infringe on civil liberties or personal freedoms
• Organizations that are not classified as public charities under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service Code
• National or regional organizations, or local branches thereof, that do not have an EIN separate from that of the larger entity
• Organizations that discriminate based on race, color, gender, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, age, disability, etc.
• Municipalities (with the exception of public schools), except for the 11 communities in which the Cummings organization operates commercial properties

Prior grant recipients are eligible to submit an LOI for an additional grant if:

• The organization meets the current eligibility requirements
• All previous Cummings Foundation (or other Cummings affiliate) grants to that organization have been fully disbursed
• In the case of recipients of 10-year grants, at least one year has passed since the disbursement of the final grant installment
• All requirements stipulated in the prior grant agreement (including the completion of annual impact reports* and the ongoing presence of an active reciprocal link to Cummings Foundation's website) have been fulfilled by the recipient organization

*Organizations that have received a prior Cummings grant may re-apply during their final year of funding in advance of submitting the final impact report. Such an organization will be removed from consideration, however, if the report is not completed by the February 28 deadline.

**In any grant cycle, the list of award recipients may include one or more organizations that do not strictly adhere to all of these priorities and eligibility guidelines. Such exceptions may be made in recognition of a particular relationship to or with the Foundation.

Changes for the 2025 Grant Cycle

As a direct result of nonprofit input via a spring 2024 survey of Cummings grant applicants, we added clarifying language to several places in our proposals and on our website. We have made our response to the survey and the raw survey data publicly available.

In addition, the Foundation is expanding its eligibility guidelines to include two more types of organizations:

• Organizations that are based and operate in our geographic priority area, but serve people whose primary residences fall outside it (e.g., nonprofits that provide transportation or housing for individuals receiving medical care in Boston, and programs that bring students from other regions to greater Boston for educational opportunities).
 
• Environmental nonprofits that focus on environmental education, equitable access to outdoor spaces, recycling/waste reduction, and sustainable agriculture and food systems. This program does not currently consider requests for research (which we lack the expertise to properly vet) or land preservation or large capital projects (which typically require much greater funds than available through this grant program).

Meeting Requests

Members of the volunteer selection committees who evaluate applications and select the majority of grant winners may independently and at their own discretion request more information from specific applicants or conduct site visits. Given the very small size of Cummings Foundation's staff and the very large number of applicants, Foundation staff members do not typically conduct site visits or hold informational or relationship-building meetings with grant applicants.

Staff members are readily available, however, to provide answers not found on this website. If you have a question, please call one of the phone numbers below at your convenience. The Foundation team is typically easy to reach, and they find it more efficient to field calls as they come rather than scheduling them in advance.

Cummings Foundation reserves the right to modify, add to, amend, or eliminate any of its eligibility requirements, priority funding areas, or policies at any time, with or without notice.

Cummings Foundation, Inc. (CFI) has a separate grant-making entity, Cummings Foundation Grants, Inc. Approved by the Internal Revenue Service effective February 1, 2011 and August 24, 2012, it is primarily funded by CFI. These entities share some common directors, as well as office space at 200 West Cummings Park, Woburn, MA 01801.