Sample Letter of Inquiry to a Foundation
[Below briefly focus on Sample Letter of Inquiry to a Foundation. Letters of inquiry are short, no more than three pages but that doesn’t mean they are easy. In fact, an effective LOI is often more difficult to write than a full proposal. You can make changes as per your requirements.]
Date…
Program Officer (Job Designation)
Foundation Name…
Address…
Sub: Letter of Inquiry to the Foundation
Dear (Name),
Thank you for reading this letter of inquiry to your [Community Foundation name]. We hope to determine your interest in receiving a full proposal for our [Program Name]. We are respectfully requesting your consideration of a grant of (Money amount). (Describe in your own words).
This project is our first outreach to senior women in their homes (Type of program). We are finding more and more senior women stay in their homes when they cannot get out to visit facilities such as our Center/program. (describe your requirements). We plan to provide socialization opportunities, health and wellness information, and social services when needed for women who are isolated from the community. (Explain your expectation).
Our program fits squarely within your Foundation’s areas of interest: health services for seniors; increasing outreach to the home-bound elderly; and helping providers of elder services to achieve greater reach within a community. (Briefly describe about future plan and programs). Our mission is to help seniors improve and maintain healthy, independent lifestyles through improvements in their quality of life.
Our satisfaction rate among the elders we serve is a very high 95 per cent, according to our latest survey. We provide nutritious lunches, social opportunities, physical exercise opportunities, and educational events throughout the year. Many of those seniors are at or below poverty income levels and physically challenged to some degree.
We can transport some of these seniors to our community centre with our existing fleet of five vans that currently serve 25-35 clients each day. (Explain the actual cause and situation). However, expanding the transportation system is costly and will not allow us to expand enough to serve the increased number of home-bound seniors, some of whom cannot leave their homes at all.
We think that by using volunteers, supervised by one professional staff member (a social worker), that we can expand the horizons of a significant number of home-bound senior women. (Cordially describe your requirements). We have limited our pilot to women because of the preponderance of single women seniors in our community.
Some of the activities that we plan to include in our home visits include:
- Cooking lessons that incorporate easy-to-prepare and nutritious food;
- Teaching simple exercise routines suitable for each elder’s physical condition;
- The introduction of socialization through the playing of a board and card games;
- Simple tests of mental capacities,
The total cost of our pilot program for one year is (Money amount). Half of that has already been committed from both the county government and other funders. Your investment of (Money Amount) will complete the funding we need to implement the pilot project fully. Our board of directors is enthusiastic about the project, and we already have many volunteers who have expressed interest.
We look forward to partnering with your foundation on this exciting project. If you have any questions or would like to receive a full proposal, please feel free to contact me. We sincerely appreciate your consideration of our request and look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Your name…
Job Designation…
Project/Institute name…
