Cottonwood Foundation is not currently inviting unsolicited grant applications, and is providing funding only to Cottonwood Partner organizations at this time.

Cottonwood Foundation initiated the Cottonwood Partners program in 2004 to focus the foundation's funding on a selected group of excellent nonprofit organizations. As of January 2010, 56 organizations are participating in this program. Thanks to generous support from Cottonwood's contributors, 43 partner organizations were awarded grants in 2009!

The current Cottonwood Partners are participating for the two-year period 2010 - 2011. As a result of positive feedback from the partners as well as the success of this approach from the board's perspective, it is anticipated that the Cottonwood Partners program will be continued in future years.

Cottonwood's board decided to move to a more partnership-based grantmaking program for several reasons. A primary motivation was the greatly increasing number of applications being reviewed by Cottonwood Foundation, which reached 548 applications in 2003, even though Cottonwood stopped inviting unsolicited grant applications in May of 2003. The huge number of proposals being received created significant challenges for Cottonwood Foundation's all-volunteer staff, and also raised questions about how fair it is to widely encourage potential applicants to submit grant proposals (with all of the accompanying expense, energy and paper) when the odds of receiving a grant from Cottonwood have become so slim.

Overall, it is expected that approximately 60 organizations from throughout the world will become partners in each two-year time period. Cottonwood Foundation does plan to invite a few new organizations each year to become Cottonwood Partners, but does not have a formal application process at this time. Primarily, new partner organizations are invited based upon nominations by members of Cottonwood Foundation's Board of Directors.

Cottonwood Foundation may possibly again invite applications from organizations interested in becoming partners in the future. If your organization is interested in potentially applying to be a Cottonwood Partner, please visit this web site occasionally for updated information.

Thank you for your interest in Cottonwood Foundation.

If you would like additional information, please contact the Foundation by email at:
info@cottonwoodfdn.org

or by postal mail at:
Cottonwood Foundation
Box 10803
White Bear Lake, MN 55110 USA

Cottonwood Foundation may be reached by telephone at (651) 426-8797 or fax at (651) 294-1012.