OVERVIEW: This foundation was formed upon the success of the Family Dollar stores. It prioritizes grantmaking in Charlotte, North Carolina. Areas of interest include healthcare, education, Jewish values, human services, and community.
FUNDING AREAS: healthcare, education, Jewish causes, community, human services
IP TAKE: This is a wonderful funder for Charlotte grant seekers to know. For those elsewhere in the Southeast, not so much. Broad interests largely convene on education and healthcare.
PROFILE: The Leon Levine Foundation supports Charlotte, North Carolina, and surrounding areas. It seeks to “to improve the human condition by creating permanent, measurable and life-changing impact throughout the Carolinas.” Leon Levine made his fortune with the retail store chain, Family Dollar. Levine grew up in Rockingham, North Carolina, and he opened his first Family Dollar store in Charlotte in 1959.
The foundation supports local causes in healthcare, education, Jewish values and human services. Health grant requests should prioritize access to care or local programming and research. Education grants support birth-12th grade public education and post-secondary scholarships for disadvantaged students. Affordable housing is a big topic for this funder through its human services grantmaking.
Jewish values are at the heart of the Leon Levine Foundation, and this funding area has a broader reach. Past grantees include the Jewish Federation, the American Israel Education Foundation, and Birthright Israel. Finally, it makes arts and culture grants through Levine’s community grant program.
Since the 1980s, the foundation has made over $200 million in grants. Historically, the majority of grants support education and healthcare. Recent grants support libraries, affordable housing, cancer care, child development, and higher education, including $11.5 million in 2021 to support the Levine Scholars Program at University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Funding comes in the form of general operating support, project/program support, scholarship support, capital campaign support, and occasionally endowment support. Seed money and start-up grants are very rare with this funder. There is no minimum or maximum grant size, however, the board only considers multiyear funding for capital campaigns. This is also a foundation that seeks to structure its grants in a matching or challenge grant format—its way of helping organizations build a donor base and increase their long-term sustainability. Overall, this funder prefers nonprofits with strong leadership, a good track record, and sustainability.
The application process begins by submitting a letter of inquiry, which is reviewed by the grants committee within 60 days. Proposals are reviewed in December, March, June and September. Next comes an invitation to submit a full proposal, which is due 45 days later.
Grant seekers can keep up with what this funder is doing on the media section of the foundation website.
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