About the Trust

Created in 1989, the Trust stewards the charitable intentions of May and Stanley Smith beyond their lifetimes.

The Trust’s 2019-2023 Strategic Plan aims to focus, deepen, and enhance our efforts to achieve significant, lasting, positive changes that promote well-being for individuals and communities.

Vision

The May & Stanley Smith Charitable Trust envisions a human community that recognizes each individual as vital to the strength, richness, and well-being of the whole, and that motivates, empowers, and invites each to contribute and participate according to his or her ability and potential.

Mission

The Trust supports organizations that offer opportunities to individuals that enrich the quality of life, promote self-sufficiency, and assist them in achieving their highest potential.

Values

The Trust is guided in all its activities and grantmaking by the following values and beliefs.

Dignity/Potential

Every individual possesses an innate dignity; a capacity to overcome adversity, hardship, or missteps; and a potential for transformation that, when accompanied by motivation and effort, compels support from the community.

Respect

We treat others as we would like to be treated, with kindness, courtesy, professionalism, and fairness, acknowledging our shared intentions to do good.

Humility

We understand that the Trust's progress and success are inherently dependent upon the work of its grantees and influenced by the actions of others; thus, we strive to celebrate, learn from, and show consideration for the achievements, viewpoints, assets, needs, and welfare of all those we encounter.

Interdependence

A community’s strength depends on the optimum contribution and mutual exchange of talents and resources among its diverse members.

Stewardship

We honor the generosity of the Trust's founders and the efforts of its grantees by attentive management of the resources, relationships, and knowledge entrusted to us for the common good. We value and respect others’ efforts to best steward their charitable resources.

For the term of the Strategic Plan, the Trust has identified the following focus populations:

Descriptions of the Trust’s current programmatic interests for each of these populations begins on the Funding Priorities page. In all of its grantmaking, the Trust is interested in supporting organizations that promote the dignity, agency, and self-sufficiency of individuals within its focus populations, and that strive to achieve a lasting difference in the lives of the people they serve.

Discretionary Grantmaking

Each year, the Trust allocates a portion of its grantmaking budget to support activities that fall outside its four main program areas but that represent relevant, timely, and valuable opportunities. Some of these grants honor specific interests of its founding donors, and are awarded to organizations in Australia, the Bahamas, Canada, Hong Kong, and the United Kingdom, places significant to Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

Unsolicited inquiries are not accepted for the Discretionary Grantmaking program.