Adjustments to Matching Grants Program

The board of the Japantown Foundation carefully listened to and considered the feedback and questions we received at the community meeting on Jan. 25. In response, we have made the following changes to the 2010 matching grants program:

1. The matching period will now end on April 30, which is one month longer than the original end date. We made this change in response to feedback from organizations that five weeks was too short a timeframe.

2. We will accept donations prior to the Feb. 22 start of the matching period, provided that the donation is made directly to the Foundation and that the organization/group earmarked on the donation is accepted into our matching grants program. If we receive donations for an organization/group that is not accepted into the matching grants program, we will either return the donation(s) to the donor(s) or write a check for the cumulative amount of the earmarked donations without a match, whichever is preferred. We made this change in response to the desire by any organization/group that wants to get a head start on soliciting donations, even prior to the start of the matching period.

3. Organizations/groups accepted into the matching grants program will not be able to donate to the Foundation in order to cover the difference between the amount of earmarked donations received by the Foundation and the $2,000 maximum. This is a clarification of an existing intent of our original rules that all individual donations counted in the matching grants program come from sources other than the organization/group benefiting from the Foundation grant.

I shared these changes in an email to the folks who attended the Monday meeting. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at grants@sfjapantownfoundation.org.