Bohemian Fund
Bohemian Fund Updates – February 2024
Bohemian Foundation is continuously learning about its role in creating an equitable community where everyone belongs.
We use a combination of applicant feedback and assessment of our internal processes to adapt Bohemian Fund to create the impact we envision. After four rounds of the Fund, we are making three important changes in 2024:
- We’ve simplified the application process to try to make it clearer why we request certain information. Additionally, we’ve included questions for repeat applicants focusing on the demonstrated impact of organizations and programs. Emphasizing impact and understanding how people’s lives are improved has always been a core value of Bohemian Fund. We believe this approach will help us to better understand the impact that organizations are creating in our community.
- Instead of having two grant rounds per year, we’re shifting to one round annually. This decision is based on the realization that two rounds create more work for both applicants and us. Our goal is to reduce the burden of multiple applications and review rounds. Instead, we’re redistributing the workload to implement strategies and evaluate their effectiveness. By directing our collective efforts toward outcomes, we believe we can better understand, evaluate, and achieve organizational growth and impact. From the outset, this was our objective with Bohemian Fund.
- We’ve identified a small group of applicants who strongly align with Bohemian Fund’s values and goals. This group is invited to apply once every two years. These organizations demonstrate a commitment to equity and belonging. They possess a clear understanding of community issues, which are informed by data and stories, and they maintain proximity to affected communities. Furthermore, they implement strategies directly linked to these issues and clearly document their impact. They will be reviewed by a committee of community members and submit interim and final reports. Bohemian staff will spend more time partnering with these organizations on reporting and understanding their impact. This group and other organizations demonstrating the criteria may be invited to reapply for another two-year Bohemian Fund cycle.
Bohemian Foundation is committed to learning and adapting Bohemian Fund to best serve grantees. We are dedicated to improving Bohemian Fund based on feedback from applicants, reviewers, and staff. We will actively listen to how changes impact applicants and use this feedback to guide future updates to Bohemian Fund.