IHE Community Giving
Irwin Home Equity proudly supports non-profit organizations in the communities in which IHE employees live. For general information about the IHE Foundation, its objectives, and guidelines, please see below. For more information please see the IHE Grant Submission Guidelines and the IHE Foundation Reporting Requirements.

IHE Foundation Guidelines for Consideration of Proposals

Objective
The objective of the IHE Foundation is to form partnerships with a core group of programs that support the current area of focus. The Foundation hopes to make a meaningful impact on this core group of programs by establishing long-term relationships in which employees may become actively involved as volunteers. Relationships among the Foundation, IHE employees, and the targeted programs will be built up through a history of demonstrated, documented results.

Current Area of Focus
The Foundation’s current area of focus is:

• The health, education, and well-being of at-risk children and their families.
  • Health refers to the alleviation of suffering, particularly in areas for which medical treatment is unavailable due to a lack of resources.
  • Education includes basic reading, writing, and math, along with adult re-education so that parents/guardians can better their lives and those of their families.
  • Well-being encompasses shelter, adoption, life skills training, disciplinary treatment, and social/behavioral therapy. Programs that fit within well-being must foster stability and assimilation into society.

Geographic Priorities
In keeping with its desire to serve the communities in which Irwin Home Equity employees live, the Foundation gives priority consideration to projects that are located in those communities. Exceptions to this rule may include programs and agencies in which employees of Irwin Home Equity are actively involved on a volunteer basis.

Organizational Size and Age Preference
The Foundation generally focuses on smaller, community-based organizations that (a) actively help people who want to be helped, (b) enable recipients to become more productive members of society, (c) promote teaching and skills development over crisis resolution, and (d) provide meaningful and measurable results in the form of a report (at least annually) to the IHE Foundation. The Foundation is equally willing to support start-ups, or younger organizations, as it is those with longer track records, provided that the organization’s management team is able to provide documentation that satisfies the selection criteria mentioned below.

Limitations
The Foundation will generally not consider the following types of requests:

• Grant commitments that exceed one year in length (although requests for subsequent funding are certainly encouraged following a one-year evaluation period)
• Grants to individuals
• Contributions to grant-making entities
• Contributions for purposes of conducting research
• Endowments or endowed chairs
• Grants that fund general operating expenses of a program or organization

Tax Exempt Status Requirement
Evidence of tax-exempt status must be included with each application for assistance.

Evaluation Criteria
The Foundation Board of Directors will evaluate proposals on a case-by-case basis to determine the efficiency of the organization in managing its goals and resources. Items considered include, but are not limited to, the following:

• How do the organization’s/project’s goals align with the Foundation’s current area of focus?
• How much confidence do we have in the organization’s management team?
• How efficiently does the organization manage its existing resources? Where does it spend its funding?
• What are the employee salaries? How many employees are volunteers?
• How much money is spent on fundraising?