Overview

The staff and Trustees of the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust look forward to reviewing your grant application. While the application is detailed, we hope these questions will be helpful to your organization and may help to clarify and better define your proposed project. Please stay true to the scope of the project described in your Letter of Inquiry (LOI) approved by the Trust; if anything other than minor adjustments have occurred in the project planning, please contact us before proceeding. Be as concise and specific as possible, edit carefully, and invite others in your organization to review a draft of the application before submission. 

Once your LOI is approved, a new grant application will populate in your Grants Portal under Additional Forms. The information you submitted with your LOI will appear above the application, which is comprised of two components: 

1. The first portion of the application is broken out into four sections that you will fill out in the online form. These sections include Organizational Information, Board Leadership, Project Information, and Project Outcomes.
2. The second portion of the application consists of document uploads that are broken into two sections: Project Documents and Organization Documents. Required project documents include a Project Budget and other uploads will be needed subject to the type of project.  

Application Documents and Resources

The explanations, tips, and sample documents found here may prove helpful in both your project planning and the completion of your application. They are intended to help inform your thinking; however, each organization and project is unique and may require a different approach than what is suggested here. Feel free to apply a format that works for you.  

Please limit your project documents to a maximum of two pages, as demonstrated in the samples. Please use no less than 11-point font in narrative areas and no less than 10-point font in a matrix, chart, or spreadsheet. We prefer that financial documents be in Excel format. 

Project Budget

• Project Budget Template – Staff 
• Preparing a Project Budget 
• Project Budget Sample – Capital  
• Project Budget Sample – Equipment
• Project Budget Sample – Staff

Revenue and Expense Projections (Formerly Pro Forma)

New Staff/Program and Capital Projects Only

• Revenue and Expense Projections Template
• Revenue and Expense Projections Sample

Project Funding Plan

Capital and Equipment Projects Only

• Project Funding Plan Template
• Project Funding Plan Sample

IRS Documentation

• IRS 509(a) or 170(b) Explanation
• Government Entity Letter
• Tribal Entity Letter