Field Work: Health

Eligible applicants include individuals, local governments, hospitals, nonprofits, for-profit organizations, chambers of commerce, libraries, schools, and other organizations in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, or Wyoming. Mental health practitioners are welcome to apply as are service-minded community members who have innovative solutions. Applicants should submit only one project proposal; multiple proposals from a single applicant will not be accepted. If applicants have multiple potential projects, they should reach out to us at connect@lorfoundation.org for help identifying the best potential project to submit.

Yes. We encourage individuals, nonprofits of all types, and businesses with a charitable set of activities to apply. This program is meant to support innovative mental health and social well-being projects brought forward by a variety of people and organizations, but all must have a community benefit rather than an individual or business benefit.

Please note that projects proposed by businesses cannot result in a financial or general operating benefit to the business. In other words, all expenditures must be for the implementation of an innovative project that benefits the community in a charitable way rather than for business improvement efforts. As such, businesses will be required to provide information about their operations including their legal status (like articles of incorporation, trust agreements, IRS documentation of classification or determination, or an organizing charter), and documentation of fiscal responsibility (like a copy of the latest IRS tax return or the most recent audited financial statement or bank statements), fiscal year start/finish dates, and areas of service. At the conclusion of the grant, businesses would need to provide itemized documentation demonstrating the charitable use of the funds. If such documentation has not been maintained or all of the activities were not charitable in nature, the business will receive a 1099 form at the end of the tax year and would need to treat the portion of the grant used for non-charitable activities as taxable income.

Organizations awaiting a 501(c)(3) determination letter and not-for-profit organizations that are not 501(c)(3)s, including 501(c)(4), 501(c)(5), 501(c)(6), 501(c)(7), 501(c)(19) are eligible for funding. These entities include social clubs, associations, business leagues, social welfare groups engaged in lobbying, and chambers of commerce. The documentation requirements outlined in the previous paragraph would apply to these types of organizations as well.

Individuals should also ensure the project results in a charitable benefit for the community. Individuals, acting as independent contractors, will also need to submit a W-9 and will receive an IRS Form 1099 for the 2025 tax year for the funding that will count toward taxable income.

No, private foundations are not eligible for Field Work funding, but they are encouraged to share the opportunity with their grantees and with the communities they serve.

Yes, fiscally sponsored projects are eligible for funding. Informal community groups or organizations that do not yet have formal designation from the IRS as a nonprofit may apply for funding. If your project will be funded under a fiscal sponsorship, you will need to provide the following in the application: (1) the fiscal sponsor’s name; (2) the fiscal sponsor’s tax ID (EIN); (3) the fiscal sponsor’s mailing address; and (4) your contact at the fiscal sponsoring organization’s name, title, and email address.

Yes, informal community groups that do not have a formal IRS designation as a nonprofit organization are eligible. These groups have two options for how to apply. If an informal community group or organization does not have an IRS nonprofit designation, but does have a fiscal sponsor for their project, they may include this fiscal sponsorship information as part of their application. If an informal community group does not have a fiscal sponsor, they may designate one of their members as the lead applicant and can apply for funding as an individual. (See Are for-profit businesses, organizations that do not have a 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, or individuals allowed to apply? for more information about how individuals can be funded.)

LOR is looking for innovative projects costing up to $25,000 that improve mental health and/or social well-being, using an innovative approach, in at least one of the three areas:

• Preventing and responding to mental health concerns
• Increasing access to and/or awareness of mental health and social well-being services
• Deepening meaningful social connections for the specific purpose of improving mental health outcomes in a community

Each project must accomplish the following:

• Be designed as a discrete learning project that answers a specific question about what is preventing good mental health in the community or what will improve it.
• Spark local change in a rural place. Projects must identify how the project will improve mental health and/or the social well-being of members of their community.
• Be innovative. LOR seeks novel projects that introduce creative approaches to improving rural mental health and social well-being.
• Produce a measurable result in one year. Projects should be designed with measurements that allow project leaders to understand whether the project was successful.

Projects must be completed within a year of funding and must include a commitment and plan for reporting learnings. LOR aims to explore a diversity of project types across our region, so location and project type will be taken into consideration during the review process.

Projects that are ineligible for LOR’s Field Work initiative are those that:

• Include academic or human-level clinical research on any experimental mental health or clinical interventions that, for example, would require a human subjects Institutional Review Board approval.
• Involve the use or handling of illegal substances.
• Use strategies that are not explicitly focused on improving mental health and/or social well-being.
• Use funding for existing solutions in the community with no additional innovation (see definition of innovation below).
• Exist as data collection-only projects or those that are exclusively focused on planning or developing a strategy.
• Make use of strategies with broadly known impacts that are commonly found in rural places.
• Include any experimental medical treatments (including psychedelic/psilocybin-based).
• Use information or data collected for this project for any purpose other than evaluating the quality and/or effectiveness of the project in order to provide information to other entities that may wish to replicate its success.

Projects must be locally led and located in a rural community of the Mountain West states of Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, or Wyoming. Projects in counties designated by the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy’s (FORHP) as rural will be considered eligible (see definition below). We will consider projects located in nonrural counties only if the applicant(s) demonstrate how the project will benefit rural residents; they must also demonstrate understanding of the rural community and how they are well-positioned to design and implement the project to meet local needs.

We will use the FORHP List of Rural Counties to distinguish urban and rural counties. Generally speaking, counties that are part of metro areas with populations of at least 50,000 are considered urban counties. However, some counties that contain an urban area—or part of one—also have a large rural presence, and we will consider applications for proposed projects in these counties. In those cases, we will ask applicants to describe the rural character of the area where the project will take place.

While innovation isn’t the only factor we consider while reviewing projects, it is an important one. We recognize that innovation can happen in a number of ways and are hoping to learn from a wide variety of projects, including the following: projects that help rural residents who typically face barriers to mental health support or who might be hard to reach; projects that employ creative approaches to reach rural residents or improve awareness; projects that make use of unlikely spaces and places to offer services; or projects that use a unique approach to improve mental health and social well-being in a rural place.

Come back to this page beginning May 12, 2025, to submit a potential project. To ensure a smooth and fast application process, applicants should be prepared with the following information:

• Applicant’s contact information, including name, mailing address, website (if applicable), phone number, and email address
• The applicant Entity Type (individual, for-profit business, public charity (nonprofit), government) and name, as well as EIN for nonprofit organizations.
• The applicant organization’s mission statement (or purpose)
• A short description of the applicant’s experience working in the rural community where the project will occur and why improving mental health or social well-being is important to the applicant.
• A description of the specific mental health or social well-being problem your project will address, including local evidence for how you know this is a problem.
• Project purpose, leader, participants, promotion strategy, place(s) within the community (or virtually) where the project will occur, and program content.
• Description of the innovation
• Project timeline and budget

We will accept applications through June 6, 2025. We will evaluate all applications before making a final decision about any proposal. We will notify applicants by the end of June.

The LOR Foundation uses a standard set of categories to organize proposed budgets. Please ensure your project’s anticipated costs align with the categories, examples, and guidance below.

Professional Services: Example expenses: Contractors to help manage or complete a project. Note that professional services cannot include compensation costs for existing staff.

Meeting or Event Needs: Materials and supplies for meetings and events.

Marketing and Awareness: Advertising and promotional materials. Example expenses: Media placement—e.g., radio, print, digital, social—and the printing of promotional materials.

Equipment Costs: Equipment and supplies for one-time or ongoing use.

Travel: Airfare, hotel, vehicle rental, and/or mileage.

Other: We prefer all costs to be listed in the specific categories provided. If there is a particular item or service that falls outside of the provided categories, please list it here. Use the “Other” category if your project includes additional costs for part-time employees and/or non-exempt staff overtime.

After the submission of your application, you will receive a confirmation email. In that email we will ask you to provide any additional information or documentation to us by emailing those documents as attachments to connect@lorfoundation.org.

Funding for Field Work research projects will be provided in two parts: half at the beginning of the project (checks will be mailed upon execution of a project agreement) and half upon completion of an implementation report that is due by September 30, 2025. Second checks will be mailed within 30 days of completion of the report.

Funding to individuals for Field Work projects is considered taxable income. If a project is accepted, applicants must submit a W-9 with their project agreements and will be responsible for reporting the income.