How to Apply

The Lark Awards

Current Status:

March 18: Application Opens
May 13: Application Closes
July 20-August 6: Site Visits
August 13: Award Notifications
October TBD: In-person Orientation

Apply

For any inquiries, please reach out to admin@durfee.org.

The Eligibility Criteria section lists the requirements organizations must have to apply. The Review Criteria section describes what makes a strong application.

Eligibility Criteria

Organizations must have the following to apply:
  • Be a nonprofit organization, or operate under fiscal sponsorship
  • Be located in and work in Los Angeles County*
  • In operation for at least 5 years*
  • A minimum of 5 full-time equivalent (FTE) paid staff, with a minimum of 3 full-time staff (full-time is generally defined as 40 hours/week) *
  • 50% of staff have been at the organization for at least two years 
  • All staff located in Los Angeles County*
  • Hybrid or in-person work structure. No fully remote organizations*
  • Budgets between $300,000 to $2 million. Budget cannot exceed $2 million* 
  • A demonstrated track record of community leadership*
  • Have a strong commitment to improving the organization’s culture of collective care
 
The following organizations are not eligible:
  • Academic institutions, including schools, university research labs, and university centers 
  • Religious congregations, proselytizing organizations
  • Government institutions 
  • Fiscal sponsors 
  • Foundations 
  • Current grantees of Durfee’s Sabbatical, Stanton, or Springboard programs
  • Former Lark recipients

Durfee is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We seek organizations whose mission, values, and staff are rooted in and reflect the communities they serve. We encourage applications from organizations that work with historically marginalized communities, including but not limited to BIPOC, LGBTQ, and low-income communities, among others.

Questions? Please contact Durfee at admin@durfee.org

*Any eligibility criteria with an asterisk will have more information in the FAQ section below. Please refer to that if you’d like to learn more.

Review Criteria

The Lark panel will review applications in light of the following questions: 

Culture & Values
  • Does the organization foster a culture of care, respect, and equity, both internally with its staff and externally with the community it works with?
  • Does the organization currently have any staff wellness practices, including even small, informal ways of showing care and appreciation for the staff?
  • Is there a strong sense of teamwork, collaboration, and community within the organization’s staff? 
  • Is the organization comfortable with a more collective and staff-driven decision-making process?
Community Leadership 
  • Is the organization recognized as a leader in the community it works with?
  • Are the staff and board reflective of the communities they work with?
  • Will the investment in the collective care of the staff have broader reverberations in the community?
Organizational Readiness
  • Is this a good time for the organization to explore what collective care means to them, given its current priorities and capacity?
  • Is the organization’s board and/or leadership supportive?
  • Has the organization had staff-wide conversations around wellness/collective care in the past? 
  • Do all staff members want to explore collective care/well-being practices at this time? 
  • Will the Lark Awards investment in this moment catalyze further actions at the organization to support collective care and well-being?

Application Process

The application asks for organization information, a staff list noting staff tenure at the organization, a budget, and essay questions that can be answered in either written or video form. You can preview the application here. 

Please allow us 8-10 weeks to communicate an update following the application deadline. Finalists will be invited to a one-hour, in-person conversation at their organization with Durfee staff. 

Applications for the Lark Awards will be reviewed by a panel composed of program alumni, Durfee staff, and board members. The panel will consider and score each application based on criteria listed above. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Eligibility FAQs

The Lark Awards were created in response to a need to support smaller nonprofit organizations, whose staff often experience high levels of burnout and exhaustion due to limited resources. We encourage larger organizations to review our Sabbatical program for other ways to support the individual leaders within your organization.

The Durfee Foundation is a place-based grantmaker, investing in people and possibilities in Los Angeles County. Additionally, Durfee convenes folks at venues in Los Angeles during the grant year. Convening and relationship building is central to our programs, and we’d like this opportunity to be offered to all staff at organizations.

This award experience may uncover conversations related to work culture and staff care. Staff that have been at the organization for a short time or may not have been fully onboarded yet may not be able to fully contribute to conversations about that organization’s culture and care. Having at least half of the staff together for two years may help with building the familiarity and  trust needed to support one another and collaborate on collective care and well-being.

The Lark Award aims to support the collective staff at organizations. We have seen in the past that organizations with 5 FTE have been able to fully participate in the Lark experience.

We would encourage you to call the foundation to discuss this further. Generally, the Lark Awards are focused on small, freestanding nonprofits that do not operate under the umbrella of a larger entity.

Unfortunately, no. In order to apply, the organization must have at least three full-time paid staff employed by the organization.

Unfortunately, Lark is a one-time award and not renewable. Durfee is a small foundation and seeks to share its modest resources with as many organizations as possible. We hope that the program acts as a catalyst and supports continued staff well-being work after the grant period.

If your organization is going through an active leadership transition, please contact us to schedule a call and discuss further.

Application FAQs

These are organizations whose mission, values, and staff are rooted in and reflect the communities they work with. Durfee is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and therefore highly encourages organizations to apply that work with historically marginalized communities, including but not limited to BIPOC, LGBTQ, low-income communities.

We want to know your organization. Applications that include all staff voices and reflect on the collective experience tend to do well compared to applications that are written from one individual.  

Please share your answers to the questions in however many or few words you need. Applications will not be judged based on spelling, grammar, length, or writing styles.

Videos should be no longer than approximately 3 minutes. Similar to written responses, we are more interested in your organization and responses than technical skills. Video responses will not be judged based on production quality or editing skills. Past selected partners have submitted edited Zoom recordings and simple phone videos.

Durfee trusts organizations to have their own definitions of collective care and staff well-being based on their staff’s collective needs and interests. Collective care can be defined as a practice of mutual support and responsibility towards supporting the health and well-being of the whole group. In order to identify collective care practices, we acknowledge that staff well-being practices must also be explored and cultivated in order to allow individuals to show up as their full, healthy selves to show up for the collective.

We do feel that well-being is distinct from professional development, because well-being focuses on rest, renewal, and the cultivation of a healthier work-life balance. We invite an expansive and exploratory approach to this work.

Past Lark partners have used the funds for weekly well-being activities or outings, break room improvements, “no-work” retreats, paid mental health days, and individual stipends. However, we encourage each organization to choose what is relevant to your staff, (re)discover well-being practices, innovate, and experiment!

The Lark Awards cannot be used to increase salaries, add benefits (i.e. retirement plans, health insurance), strategic planning retreat, general operation or an executive transition. 

While we recognize these are important, the Lark Awards is intended solely for the staff well-being and collective care.

We are looking for organizations that have experience with or are open to collective decision-making processes that include meaningful input from staff. As part of the grant period, each organization will determine the best way to use the funds. We encourage organizations to take as much time as they need during the planning process to really help develop a Lark plan that is rooted in the organization’s needs around collective care. 

Past Lark recipients have used tools like surveys to collect ideas from the full team.

Durfee Lark Awards funds are issued to nonprofit organizations to support staff collective care and renewal. Under IRS code, these funds are considered charitable support to organizations. However, there may be additional tax liabilities that organizations and employees should be aware of. Durfee cannot provide tax advice, but notes that if some or all funds are earmarked for individual use, a personal tax liability could exist for staff members depending on the amount and method of distribution. Durfee advises organizations to seek advice from their accountant before disbursing funds.

Program FAQs

We believe that people are at the center of change. We believe that it is in our collective best interest to take care of the people who are doing this important community-centered work, and that everyone deserves to rest.

In addition to restoring the energy and health of nonprofit teams, Durfee hopes to spark change in both nonprofit and philanthropic culture, to encourage more investment in the people who are making change.