OVERVIEW: This funder supports work related to children, education, arts, community and the economy in communities throughout Oregon and also in Siskiyou County, California. It prioritizes rural efforts, and the application process is always open.
IP TAKE: This is a great funder for grant seekers in rural Oregon to know. There are lots of funding priorities here, but communities with populations under 35,000 are the focus. The Ford Family Foundation is also particularly accessible in that it has no application deadlines, with a few exceptions. It clearly provides grant seekers with a directory of previously awarded grants as well as an application toolkit featuring a FAQ, relevant documents, and recommendations for a strong application. It accepts unsolicited applications online on a rolling basis.
PROFILE: The Ford Family Foundation—not to be confused with the Ford Foundation in New York—is headquartered in Roseburg, Oregon. It and serves the communities of Oregon and Siskiyou County, California. It seeks to serve “the people and the communities of Oregon and Siskiyou County, California.” Kenneth and Hallie Ford established the foundation in 1957 to support the timber communities of Southwest Oregon. Kenneth started one of the largest family-owned wood product manufacturing companies in the country, and Hallie was a teacher and painter. The foundation is a separate entity from the family-owned company, Roseburg Forest Projects, and as of 2024 holds over $1.1 billion in assets.
In 2022, the Foundation initiated a 10-year strategic plan dedicated to ensuring that “rural children have the family, educational and community support they need to succeed in life.” In 2025, Foundation President Kara Inae Carlisle reaffirmed the commitment to rural children amid rapid political and economic change. Grantmaking priorities include Family, Education and Community, with special emphasis on sparsely populated rural areas of the state. The exception, here, is the visual arts program, which offers assistance to urban areas in Oregon, too.
Ford Family Foundation also runs a smaller Open Grants program that gives up to $25,000 for programs, projects and technical assistance in Oregon and Siskiyou County, CA.
Grants for Education
Education grants emphasize “early childhood education, helping children start strong in their early grades, and preparing students for the transition from high school to postsecondary education or a career.” The program emphasizes early childhood education, financial education and postsecondary success.
- Of late, child care appears to be an area of increased attention within the foundation’s early childhood education grantmaking, as nationwide economic uncertainty forces parents to work more. For instance, the Foundation made a $250,000 grant to the Central Oregon Community College Foundation for expanded child care in rural swaths of the state.
- The Ford Family Foundation also awards scholarships and fellowships. It has a scholarships office in Eugene, Oregon, and “support those who face significant obstacles to obtaining a college degree” in Oregon and Siskiyou County, California.
- Recent education grantees include Lutheran Community Services, Oregon TRIO Association and Scienceworks Hands-On Museum, among many other Oregon and Siskiyou County-based public schools and daycares.
Grants for Community Development and Human Services
As a rural-community development funder, The Ford Family Foundation seeks to “develop a shared vision for their community’s future and implement plans that enable them to attract and retain a diverse population, especially working-age families” through its Community grantmaking program.
- The Foundation prioritizes development and capacity building of rural institutions, economic mobility, and the securing of federal funding for rural areas.
- Recent grantees working towards community improvement, beautification and organizing in Oregon include Wallowa Resources, Gold Beach Main Street and Shasta Regional Community Foundation.
- Grantees working towards greater rural economic mobility include Our Children Oregon, High Desert Partnership and the Town of Butte Falls.
The Foundation’s Community giving possesses some overlap with its human services-oriented Family program, which promotes financial stability for families to best care for their children and “ensures that children have nurturing attachments from their earliest years, including preventing child abuse and neglect.”
- Family grants funds preventative measures related to child abuse, neglect, food insecurity and homelessness. The program also has an educational component for young families that promotes nutrition and strong parenting skills.
- Recent family services grantees include Pioneer Relief Nursery, Family Building Blocks and Juliette’s House. Recent child welfare grantees include Children’s Center of Clackamas County, Casa for Children of Klamath County and Oregon Casa Network.
Grants for the Arts
Ford Family Foundation co-founder Hallie Ford had a lifelong interest in visual arts, therefore, the Foundation hosts funding opportunities for visual arts nonprofits as well as individual artists. Unlike other areas of the Foundation’s grantmaking, visual arts grants have a national scope, despite lesser total funding year-to-year in comparison with other priority areas.
- For institutions and nonprofits, Exhibition Grants fund the curation, preparation and traveling of exhibitions of works by established Oregon visual artists. These grants are made by invitation only, but organizations can use the contact form at the bottom of the program page to inquire about funding opportunities.
- The Hallie Ford Fellowship for the Visual Arts offers up to three grants of $35,000 to “support the exploration, conceptualization, creation, exhibition and documentation of new work by Oregon visual artists.”
- Other Artist Funding aids individual artists with residency opportunities and career opportunity grants of up to $9,000 through the Oregon Arts Commission.
Important Grant Details:
Grants typically hover between $2,000 and $500,000, and occasionally reach seven figures for select philanthropic partners.
- Most grants are limited to rural communities and populations in the state of Oregon, as well as Siskiyou County, California. However, grants made from the Visual Arts program extend nation-wide.
- View a list of grantees by year here.
- There are no application deadlines—the foundation accepts grant requests every day. You can expect a response within six to eight weeks after applying. Site visits are common; limited multi-year grants are available.
- There are over three dozen staff members. News and grant announcements are on the What’s New page.
- Direct general inquiries to the staff at info@tfff.org or (541) 957-5574..
PEOPLE:
Search for staff contact info and bios in PeopleFinder (paid subscribers only).
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