ELIGIBILITY:

Organizations within the United States must be recognized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as tax exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) and classified by the IRS as a public charity.

Organizations from outside the United States must provide information and documents to determine whether the organization is the equivalent of a U.S. public charity.

Organizations to be funded must serve an audience greater than 65 percent economically underserved relative to the average standards of the target geography.

Organizations and programs must focus on at least one of our social investment areas: crisis response, education, economic empowerment, and/or climate impact and regeneration.

For education, crisis response, and economic empowerment proposals, we will also consider proposals that address environmental sustainability within the context of that investment area. For example, we would consider funding an economic empowerment program that specifically focuses on creating green jobs.

An organization’s overhead is not to exceed 25 percent. (Organizations are occasionally exempt from this requirement; however, they must be exceptionally aligned with Cisco’s values and criteria, and they must clearly explain and justify their overhead costs. Exemptions to the requirement on overhead expenses are determined on a case-by-case basis.) Cisco Foundation does not tend to make grants to colleges and universities. In the case that such a grant may be made, Cisco Foundation does not support additional institutional overhead rates for colleges and universities.

BENEFIT:

The maximum request amount for first-time grant recipients is US$75,000