Tips for locating grant makers who support mental-health care

Q. I work for a residential treatment and rehabilitation facility for people with mental illness. Can you point me to any foundations that support charities like ours?

A. Thousands of charities apply for grants at the top foundations says Carla Lavender, director of development at the Devereux Georgia Treatment Network, a mental-health treatment center for teenagers in Kennesaw, Ga. “There’s a lot of competition,” she says.

In fact, much of foundation giving is provincial in nature.

“Unless we’re talking about something with nationwide impact, your best bet is to look for local funders,” says Dennis Hills-Cooper, director of development at Thresholds, a mental-health charity in Chicago. Most of his organization’s foundation support comes from local sources, he says.

To start your search, go to the library, says Ms. Lavender. The Foundation Center, in New York, operates libraries in five cities and cooperates with public libraries across the country.

At these locations, you can gain free access to the center’s electronic database of foundations as well as print directories of grant makers. The center’s Web site also contains plenty of information on individual grant makers.

Mr. Hills-Cooper also suggest you contact other mental-health charities in your area and request their annual reports, which generally list donors.

In addition to The Chronicle’s own Guide to Grants, some Web sites that catalog grant makers and announcements of available grants include those of the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest and the Grantsmanship Center. The Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers Web site includes a directory of associations that represent grant makers in each state.

As you’re conducting your research, think about the services your charity provides and the people it reaches, our observers say. Doing so will allow you to broaden your search beyond mental-health grant makers.

For instance, Mr. Hills-Cooper says, Thresholds has received dollars from grant makers that want to help former inmates, young people, and the homeless, as well as foundations that fight poverty and support the arts.

Ms. Lavender and Mr. Hills-Cooper recommend making a particular effort to identify nearby family foundations.

“I think they’re overlooked compared to community foundations or large local foundations,” Mr. Hills-Cooper says. Some family foundations don’t accept proposals, and others have strict criteria for their giving, he says, and therefore they tend to get fewer requests for money than larger grant makers do.