Grant Guidelines

The Macy Foundation is primarily focused on domestic health professional education.

Proposals are evaluated on the importance of the project and its relevance to the Foundation’s funding priorities; the significance of the project’s expected results and potential applicability to similar situations; and the sponsor’s commitment to continue successful programs after the Foundation’s support ceases. Grants are made only to tax-exempt institutions or agencies; no grants are made directly to individuals. The Foundation does not consider requests for general undesignated support, endowments, equipment, construction or renovation projects. The Foundation generally cannot support individual institutions in their efforts at curriculum change, however worthy. The Foundation is a grant making organization and cannot give gifts or make contributions to capital campaigns. Because the Foundation conducts its own conference program, it does not generally support conferences of other organizations.

Applications may be made at any time for support of activities consistent with the Foundation’s guidelines. A preliminary letter of no more than three pages will determine whether submission of a full proposal is warranted.

All letters of inquiry should include:

• the name of the sponsoring agency or institution;
• a description of the project;
• the names and qualifications of the persons
  who will be responsible for the project; and
• an initial budget.

An important component of your letter of inquiry is the initial budget. For your convenience we have provided a brief form to be filled out using your best judgment of expenses.

As a matter of policy, the Foundation does not accept submission of applications via e-mail or the Internet.

Please send all correspondence to:

After a review and evaluation, requests to the Foundation are processed and answered in a timely fashion. Due to the large volume of correspondence and our small staff size, the Foundation is unable to critique letters of inquiry that have been declined.

Finally, the Foundation can act favorably on relatively few of the more than five hundred grant requests received each year. Many proposals must be declined even though they are appropriate to the Foundation’s areas of interest and appear to be of merit.

Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation
44 East 64th Street • New York, New York 10065