Our Mission:

Within the interests of our founders, our mission is to create opportunity, help meet basic needs and improve the lives of people in Vermont. In all matters, the foundation's guiding principles are personal and fiscal responsibility.

Our Values:

The R.E. and D.L. Tarrant Foundation's operations and grantmaking are guided by the following values:

• This Foundation is a family enterprise, not an institution. It is always meant to represent the interests and values of the founders.
• We value the opportunity to create change one person at a time.
• We appreciate the opportunity to recognize the unsung heroes of our communities.
• We intend this Foundation to sunset its grantmaking no later than 2055, according to guidelines set by the board, and prefer current impact to building a legacy.
• Most of our grants will be guided by our interest in:
• helping people who face challenges in their everyday lives;
• helping people who want to take responsibility to change and improve their lives;
• entrepreneurial, diverse, innovative, and out-of-the-box opportunities in our communities.
• Our grantmaking will primarily focus in the fields of human service and education.
• In all projects and organizations that we fund, we look for strong leadership, an entrepreneurial mindset, responsible fiscal management, efficiency, minimum bureaucracy, and a focus on action and outcomes.
• As long as is practical, we will only accept competitive applications from organizations based in and serving Vermont.
• We intend our Foundation to be a lean and streamlined operation, maximizing the impact of our resources, and focus our grantmaking on organizations that do the same.
• We may occasionally make proactive grants to organizations that are not expecting it.
• We hope that our giving will set an example and encourage other gifts, and we may sometimes use matching grants to accomplish this.
• We generally do not provide full-funding or make grants that create reliance on our support.
• Generally we do not fund endowments, advocacy, pro-choice or progressive political agendas, events and fundraising, multi-year grants, debt retirement, or organizations that re-grant funds.

Qualifying Organizations:

To qualify for a grant from the Tarrant Foundation, the applicant organization must be one of the following:

• 501(c)(3) public charitable organization
• qualified educational institution
• qualified religious organization