Grant Information

Since 2010, the Women to Women Endowment has awarded nearly $2.3 million in grants to 70 programs. Extensive research is conducted—including a thorough needs assessment—to identify the organizations best equipped to meet the needs of women and children in Guilford County. Women to Women typically makes one-year grants, with awards between $10,000 and $75,000. Exceptions are permitted in rare circumstances for larger awards or multi-year grants.

2026 GRANT CYCLE - Opens April 1, 2026

Women to Women makes strategic investments in programs that offer preventive strategies and/or proactive initiatives in one or more of the following focus areas that align with the organization's mission to empower women and children to create healthy families and vibrant communities.​

• HOUSING/MOBILITY: Assist economically disadvantaged women in becoming more self-sufficient through reliable housing and transportation.

• HEALTHCARE: Promote access to quality health care and advance healthy lifestyles.

• EDUCATION/WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: Provide educational and workforce opportunities that help women and children reach their full potential.

• FOOD SECURITY: Ensure women and their children are well fed and nourished.
  

NOTE: W2W does not weigh each pillar equally year-to-year. Rather, we review all applicants side-by-side and naturally the awards given fall across all of the pillars.

Eligibility:

To receive funds, your agency must:

• Have 501(c) (3) tax-exempt status as defined by the Internal Revenue Service.

• Spend no more than 5% of your budget on legislative involvement.

• Apply to fund programs in Guilford County only.

• Faith-based applicants should clarify whether, and the extent to which, the organization's religious beliefs are integrated into the project.

Please note: W2W does not fund individuals, political action organizations, or endowment funds.

Grant Guidelines:

• Women to Women grants funds to specific programs, not agencies, which support women and children.

• Women to Women encourages that each agency only submits one application each year. Given the high demand for funding, it is unlikely that W2W will be able to provide funding to more than one program per agency within a grant year.

• Women to Women funds projects that will make a measurable difference, and for which return on investment can be demonstrated.

• Women to Women examines the financial stability of programs and agencies.

• Women to Women favors innovative, collaborative, and creative programs that meet community needs and align with our mission to empower women and children to create healthy families and vibrant communities.

• Women to Women will conduct site visits prior to allocating funds.

• During the application review process, Women to Women will consider whether or not the organization you are applying for has previously received funding from us in order to ensure that our funds are strategically and widely dispersed throughout our community. Prior funding, however, does not preclude or disqualify your organization from consideration.

W2W Grant-Making Values: 

• Trust-based philanthropy: We trust organizations to use our funds as judiciously as possible and in accordance with stated intent in the application and thus we always give unrestricted funds. 

• Holistic compassion and support for women and their family members. How can we best support women struggling with aging parents, in-laws, children, and/or grandchildren?

• Transparency in our process: Share numbers who applied and those who progressed to site visits, and provide constructive feedback to the applicant about why they're grant proposal wasn't funded.

• Respect for applicants’ busy schedules: Minimize the onus on non-profits throughout the process.

• Prioritization of programmatic grants (the what) over capacity-generating grants (the how). But, having said that …

  • Salaries are critical and worthy of our funding: We believe non-profit workers should get paid for the invaluable work they do in our community.

NEW Going Forward = W2W Will Provide Grants in 3 Tiers:

• Systemic Change ($50k-$100k): W2W will prioritize the majority of our grant pool to this category as we believe that large-scale funding provides the largest impact and ROI to our community. These grants are the gamechangers = the expansion projects; the capital projects; the “if only we had X we could do Y” projects. They are only available to non-profits that have been operating for 3+ years in our community with a proven track record.

  • Note: Since systemic change takes time, we will heavily consider funding one multi-year grant in this category. Ex: orgs can request up to $300k for a three-year project.

• Critical Needs ($10k-$25k): W2W understands that non-profits operate on extremely thin margins and oftentimes need specific gaps filled. Thus we will support several “critical needs” grants across our four strategic pillars.

• Rising Star ($10k): W2W wants to support the future leaders of our community who are helping to solve unmet needs around us. Thus, we will award one “rising star” award each year to a person (executive director or board chair) OR a nonprofit for this recognition. Monetary funding will be combined with strategic guidance (leadership training/mentoring, business plan development, connections to pro-bono services) from CFGG to ensure they are on track for success in the years ahead. To be eligible for this, person/org has been in operation for 2 years and annual revenue is under $100k.

NEW Going Forward = ALL Organizations Will Start With an LOI, and Select Which Type of Grant You Are Requesting.

W2W will then review each tier separately to determine which orgs move forward to full application and finally to site visit. Our intent is to significantly reduce the number of full applications submitted in order to be most considerate of the submitter’s time commitment.

NEW Going Forward = For Prior W2W Funded Orgs:

If any organization has received a systemic change grant ($50k+) from W2W, you will be ineligible to receive further funding from us for one grant cycle. Review prior grantees and amounts here: womentowomengreensboro.org/all-grantees

Ex: Org XYZ received $50k from W2W in the 2026 grant cycle. They are ineligible to reapply until the 2028 grant cycle (skipping the 2027 application).

Timeline and Next Steps:

If after reviewing Women to Women's mission and focus areas you feel your organization is a match, please submit a brief letter of interest of no more than two pages, describing your grant request.

LOIs for the 2026 grant cycle will be accepted April 1 - April 30, 2026.