Frequently Asked Questions

No. The Koch Foundation only provides grant awards to Catholic, non-profit organizations.

No. Per our Guidelines, we do not fund sponsorships or fundraising events.

No. The Koch Foundation does not provide grants to individuals for any reasons. Superiors of religious institutes or diocesan ordinaries may request a grant for assistance to a member(s) of their religious institute or dioceses.

Yes, if your organization applied and/or received a grant during our 2019 cycle, you are eligible to apply for funding for the same ongoing project in the 2020 cycle beginning January 1, 2019, provided that doing so does not exceed the limit of three grants within a five-year period.

We do not require grantees to submit a Final Evaluation for any project that is still in progress. (Final Evaluations are due 30 days after the approved project end date.) However, we do confirm that all prior reporting requirements have been fulfilled before issuing a new application.

The Koch Foundation’s Board of Directors is dedicated to ensuring an equitable distribution of funds and to that end has imposed certain limits on application requests. Organizations such as dioceses, archdioceses, eparchies, archeparchies, apostolic vicariates, and religious institutes of Pontifical Right are allowed to submit more than one application request per cycle. Individual parishes, schools or Catholic non-profits are permitted one application request per cycle. The Koch Foundation does not, however, provide multiple applications for the same physical location regardless of the applying organization’s status.

Amounts awarded have varied and depend on the scope and significance of the project. Over the years, we have made awards ranging from $500 to $1,000,000 but the average award amount is around $10,000.The time period for a project has always been one year.

View Our Annual Reports

There are several reasons the Koch Foundation may decide to decline a proposal; however, some of the most common reasons proposals are declined are listed below.

• The proposal did not fall within our guidelines
• The organization itself was ineligible to apply to the Koch Foundation
• The project was not described sufficiently
• The budget was not clear or did not correspond to the project description

Yes. However, the entire application process is now electronic and can be completed via our dedicated applicant portal. To receive an application, you must complete a Letter of Request through the applicant portal. Please bear in mind that submitting a request does NOT guarantee receipt of an application.

No. Requests and applications are considered confidential documents.

We accept requests from January 1st through May 1st each year for possible funding the following year. Organizations whose request(s) align most closely with funding categories and the Koch Foundation’s mission of evangelization will be invited to submit an application. The form will specify the proposal due date. Please do not submit a full proposal without an invitation to apply.

To submit a grant proposal, you must complete and submit a formal letter of request through the applicant portal. We do not accept submissions by fax or email.

Additionally, please note that applications cannot be requested by phone, nor can grant requests be submitted via the “Contact Us” form.

Yes. All letters of request, applications, and supporting documents must be submitted in English. Applications that do not comply with this requirement will not be considered for funding. 

After you have completed your online request and clicked ‘Submit,’ you will receive an automated email notifying you that the request has been received, along with a copy of the request for your records. It can take up to one (1) month to review a request. You will be contacted via email if additional information or follow-up is needed. If you are approved for an application, you will be notified via email.

The grantmaking process typically takes approximately twelve (12) months to complete. Final funding decisions are made by the Board of Directors, which meets once per year.

Grant award notifications are issued annually in March. Due to the high volume of inquiries during this time, staff are unable to respond to phone calls regarding grant status.

A fiscal agent is a representative of a Catholic organization based in the United States and listed in the Official Catholic Directory. This organization agrees to receive and disburse Koch Foundation grant funds to the international recipient. Because the Koch Foundation does not transfer funds directly to organizations outside the United States, all international applicants are required to have a fiscal agent.

The Foundation does not identify or assign fiscal agents. Applicants must secure a fiscal agent independently before submitting a request. We will not contact a fiscal agent on your behalf. It is the applicant’s responsibility to obtain a signed fiscal agent agreement confirming that the agent personally knows the applicant and accepts responsibility for transferring the funds.

In accordance with the requirements of the Patriot Act, the Koch Foundation must ensure that all grant funds are distributed exclusively to legitimate Catholic organizations.

Following the events of 9/11 an array of laws were enacted in the United States, several of which are intended to prevent the funding of terrorist or terrorist sympathizing organizations. Koch Foundation and other entities that make charitable contributions or donations, especially overseas, are subject to these laws. Most of these laws existed in one form or another prior to 9/11 however amendments and Executive Orders have altered their impact on charitable organizations such as the Koch Foundation, and require us to adhere to a much stricter code.

Only official representatives of Catholic organizations located in the United States and listed in the US Official Catholic Directory may serve as fiscal agents. The organization must notify the Koch Foundation of its willingness to accept responsibility to disburse funds to overseas recipients and must have personal knowledge of the grantee organization.

The Koch Foundation grantees are required to submit an evaluation upon expending all Koch Foundation grant monies or completion of the approved project, whichever occurs first. Evaluation Reports are expected to be a substantive record of the activities conducted during the year of the grant, how the goals set forth in the original proposal were met, and a detailed expenditure report showing how the Koch grant monies were spent.

The Koch Foundation awards no more than one grant per organization per year, with the expectation that the funded project will be completed within one year of the grant award date.

If a project is delayed beyond the approved project dates, the grantee must notify the Foundation by email, providing an explanation for the delay along with a revised project completion schedule. Upon review of this information, the Foundation will determine whether to grant an extension.

An average of 300 awards is made each year.

The Koch Foundation typically provides between $5-8 million in grants to Catholic non–profit organizations worldwide.

The Koch Foundation, Inc. is endowment-based. When our founder, Carl Koch, sold his American Beauty Company he set aside a portion of the profits to fund a foundation to promote the Catholic faith. Over the years, the investments have grown and with it so have the number of grants.