About Us

About Cloudsplitter Foundation

The Cloudsplitter Foundation formed as a 501c3 charity in 1986, re-domiciled in New York in 1999. From 2011-2023, $ 15.7 million distributed to the Adirondack region, with $35.8 million in assets.

An Adirondack focus, at least 70% of our grants go to Adirondack grantees.

Through our strategic giving, we promote public support or support of other foundations, support a policy direction or change and provide leadership grants.

Areas of Interest

Program/Project Support Grants

Environment

Protecting our natural resources through advocacy, land protection, stewardship

Mission Support Grants

Community Building

Supporting cultural, physical, & civic facilities like theaters, community centers, parks, trails, community revitalization

Rapid Response Grants

Economic Stability

Supporting Tourism, critical infrastructure like museums & historic sites, recreational facilities


Child Care Excellence Awards

Communications and Data Infrastructure

Broadband everywhere, public radio and television, focused fact-based journalism

Other Grants & Loans

Helping our most vulnerable neighbors

Birth-to-Three program, food programs, family resources, aging in place

Activist Philanthropy

  • Grants should provide measurable long-term benefits
  • Priority grants: financially, socially, politically leveraged
  • We want to provide more than just money:
  • Local knowledge
  • Networking
  • Strategy
  • We will initiate as well as fund projects, e.g.,
  • Birth-to-Three initiative
  • Attempt to save St Gabriel’s church
  • Improving regional 211 dispatch services
  • We like to work with other grant-makers (e.g., Adirondack Funders Coalition)

Strategic Philanthropy

  • Be active in identifying and meeting community and environmental needs
  • Identify opportunities to leverage our financial support, like bringing other funders into projects, leveraging public monies (e.g., grants requiring a match) and creating incentives (e.g., last-dollar in grants).
  • Bring grantees together when goals are aligned to increase impact, funding
  • Use in-depth local knowledge to identify needs and initiate projects
  • Help local government with critical projects where philanthropy matters
  • Subsidize research when having data can create leverage

Grant Making Process

  • Simple three-page grant request form
  • Grants of up to 20% of project budget
  • Smaller recurring mission-support (vs. project) grants are possible
  • Rapid-response grants to meet emergencies
  • Grants requests must be in by prior month.
  • Requests are scored on “bang for buck” metrics (reach, leverage, return)
  • Endowment grants are not favored
  • Multi-year grants acceptable with performance criteria

The Adirondacks are full of organizations that we love and that are irreplaceable. Cloudsplitter will continue to evaluate and prioritize systemic threats so that we have the resources to respond now and into the future. Given the unknowns of the current funding environment, we wanted to be clear with our grant applicants that we may be less likely to fund capital projects, events, projects far outside the Adirondack park, and very large grant requests at this time. If you feel something in those categories deserves our attention, please contact us to discuss further.