General Questions

Capital Projects

Construction or acquisition of buildings, land, or equipment that directly support a ministry’s Christian mission, with priority given to seminaries and pastor training schools.

Or

Sustainability Projects

Initiatives that create practical revenue or financial-stability pathways, helping the ministry strengthen its budget and decrease dependence on outside funding.

A sustainability project is one that helps a ministry develop local income or cost-savings that contribute to its long-term financial health. Sustainability, in this context, refers to a ministry’s commitment to establishing revenue sources that reduce dependence on continual outside funding. While we recognize that many ministries require ongoing support, we prioritize projects that present a clear, achievable pathway toward greater financial stability.

We believe God has richly blessed the United States with a strong Church presence, a variety of Christian schools and Universities with many who freely contribute to their ongoing support. This is not the case in many parts of the world so our focus is on those nations and missions outside of the U.S. who do not enjoy such strong financial resources and opportunities.

The first step is to submit a Letter of Introduction (LOI) which provides us with information about your organization and a summary of your project. With this LOI, we also ask that you upload a copy of the organization’s IRS 501(c)(3) designation. If it appears that your project meets with our funding criteria and goals, you will be invited to submit a more detailed proposal for funding in our next grant cycle.

Visit our Grant page to apply.

We are unable to fund individuals or organizations that do not meet this requirement. The Birtcher Family Foundation is only able to award grants to non-profit organizations that are registered and classified by the Internal Revenue Service as 501(c)(3).

At this time, we do not provide grants through fiscal sponsors. 

The Foundation’s Grant Committee reviews all LOIs, and invitations for proposals are extended regularly. Once a proposal is received, Board members may contact the respective grantee representatives or undertake a site visit, if feasible. Following this initial review, proposals are presented to the entire Board of Trustees for final consideration and the requestor is notified. Depending on the scope of the project, this could take up to 3-6 months.

We encourage our partners’ growth and expansion. Our Trustees will consider a proposal with the following guidelines:

• Only one grant proposal from an organization will be considered in a twelve month period.
• If you have previously received a grant from The Birtcher Family Foundation, progress reporting requirements must be current before submitting another request.

There is no need to submit another LOI. Simply go to click here then provide your contact information and a brief summary of your request; further instructions will follow.

Grant proposals may be submitted anytime. The Birtcher Family Foundation trustees meet frequently to consider grant awards.

The Birtcher Family Foundation’s vision is “to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ and to promote Christian values in foreign lands.” Its mission is the promotion of Christian evangelism, values and discipleship. When Mr. and Mrs. Birtcher established the Family Foundation, they clearly defined those types of projects and organizations with whom we would partner; in order to assure that we are holding true to their stated desires, our trustees require that an organization have a mission or doctrinal statement, and that it is consistent with ours.

In order to maintain our mandate of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ, our trustees have determined that we should not align The Birtcher Family Foundation with any specific denomination. We advise those organizations that are sponsored by or have formal relationships with denominations to first seek funding through those channels that are available to them as a result of their ties to that denomination.

As a condition of receiving an award from The Birtcher Family Foundation, we ask that progress report(s) be submitted at specified intervals and a completion report at the project’s end.

As you can imagine, we receive many more requests for assistance than we are able to assist with our own limited resources. In order to prioritize our consideration, The Birtcher Family Foundation relies on a set of guidelines to help us select those projects to which we can lend financial support. We do not provide grants for these types of activities and recommend that you direct your fund-seeking efforts towards those foundations that offer that type of support.

Colleges and universities generally fall outside our guidelines. In recent years our funding to education has gone almost exclusively to construction of Christian K-12, vocational schools, Christian training centers, and seminaries.

For colleges and universities, we recommend that you direct your fund-seeking efforts towards those foundations where higher education is a priority.