Funding Priorities

The May & Stanley Smith Charitable Trust’s funding priorities are guided by its 2024-2028 Strategic Plan, which recommits to the same four focus populations identified and served through its first two strategic plans over the last ten years – Adults and Transitioning Youth with Disabilities, Foster Youth, Older Adults, and Veterans. We recognize that each of these focus populations is quite distinct: they are usually served by different organizations and typically interact with different systems of support. However, within those populations, individuals may hold intersecting identities; for example, a veteran may have spent time in the child welfare system, a foster youth may also be disabled, and an older adult may be a veteran. Further, there may be instances in which a program or organization is focused on a specific intervention that addresses the needs of more than one of our focus populations – for example, a program addressing housing may have outreach and support to both youth and veterans. To this end, there may be times where specific opportunities are identified that address these intersecting identities and resources for our focus populations. Some of the common themes across all the Trust's focus populations include: the inability of current systems to meet needs; the importance of caregiving, both formal and informal; and very immediate and tangible issues such as housing instability and homelessness; food insecurity; economic insecurity, and the need for mental health support.

After a decade of grantmaking to organizations in British Columbia, Canada (BC), and within the Trust’s four program areas described below, the Trust has made the difficult decision to phase out of grantmaking in BC. This decision was not arrived at lightly, but reflects our ongoing commitment to steward the resources entrusted to us and a strategic planning process that affirmed our commitment to deepening our programmatic grantmaking within the western geography of the United States. We are proud of the partnerships we have made with grantees in BC over the past ten years and grateful for the opportunities that arose during this time to invest in organizations that helped our four focus populations thrive.

Beginning January 1, 2024, funding requests from organizations located in British Columbia will not be accepted. An extremely limited number of non-competitive grants will continue in British Columbia, as we honor the intent of our founder, May Wong Smith.

The Trust’s funding supports organizations that provide direct services to individuals, organizations intervening at various levels to effect positive change – the individual, the family, the community, and those striving to bring about changes in systems, policies, and/or behaviors that contribute to improved well-being and opportunity for its focus populations, including those who have been historically marginalized.

In all of its grantmaking, the Trust is interested in supporting organizations that promote the dignity, agency, and inclusion of individuals within its focus populations, and those that strive to achieve a lasting difference in the lives of the people they serve through advocacy and support of just and equitable systems and communities.