The M J Murdock Charitable Trust funds new staff and program expansion in the Pacific Northwest on a published schedule: 100% of the cost in year one, 67% in year two, 33% in year three. The arithmetic is the point. By the third year the grant is paying a third of a salary it fully covered two years earlier, and the organization is paying the rest.
That is a grant with its own ending written into the award terms — not a renewal risk or a funding climate, but a number in the guidelines, known before you apply.
New Mexico publishes a sharper version. Per the Community Schools Renewal Grant record from the New Mexico Public Education Department, this is a one-year opportunity for schools that have already completed the initial three-year implementation grant, capped at roughly $75,000 and restricted to the Community School Coordinator’s salary and benefits. To get it, an applicant submits a Systemic Sustainability Plan, an updated strategic plan, and a Financial Sustainability Plan — the record describes the last one as demonstrating a transition to full outside funding. The deliverable of the grant application is a credible plan for not needing the grant.
Seven records currently indexed on OpenGrants put the end of the money in the terms, in four structurally different ways. What they have in common is that the schedule, not the amount, decides what the application has to say.
The Short Version
Several multi-year grant awards publish the year the money shrinks or stops: a step-down percentage across three years, a fixed non-renewable term, a tier ladder you can climb only once, or a cap tied to a share of your annual income. Read the schedule before the ceiling — it changes what the proposal must contain.
A Step-Down Is a Revenue Question Wearing a Program Form
Per the Murdock Trust’s guidelines for grantseekers, Strategic Project grants come in three types: New Staff or Program Expansion grants on that declining 100%/67%/33% basis over three years; Capital grants for construction, renovation and property purchase; and Equipment and Technology grants where the grantee covers at least 50% of the cost.
Eligibility is its own paragraph, and one line in it is worth pairing with the step-down. Applicants must be 501(c)(3) public charities, federally recognized tribal entities, or qualifying government entities such as universities, community colleges and medical centers; must be based in Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon or Washington, or run a project with more than 50% of its impact in that region; must have at least three years of operating and financial history; and must demonstrate strong board engagement and funding diversification.
A funder that asks you to prove diversification before the award, then reduces its own share by a third each year after it, is consistent rather than demanding: the step-down is the same requirement expressed as a cash-flow schedule. Fiscally sponsored organizations, 501(c)(4) and (c)(6) organizations, private foundations, individuals and for-profit businesses are listed as ineligible, and an organization that has already received a Strategic Project grant becomes eligible to submit a new Letter of Intent three years after the award date, tied to specific submission periods.
So the planning horizon is six years, not three: three years of a shrinking grant, then three years before you may ask again. An organization that hires into year one without a plan for year four is reading the amount and skipping the calendar.
The Tier You Qualify For Depends on the One You Have Used
Per The Clowes Fund record, Indiana applicants face two tiers, and your history decides which one is open.
Introductory Grants are $40,000 total over two years — $20,000 a year — in Immigrant Services or Workforce Development, open to organizations that have not received a Clowes Fund competitive grant in the past five years. Continuation Grants are $60,000, $90,000 or $150,000 over three years — $20,000, $30,000 or $50,000 a year — in those two areas plus Arts Education and K-12 Education, for prior Clowes Fund grantees. Applications go through the GOapply platform, and the record carries a deadline of November 1, 2026.
Read as a ladder, the structure is legible: one two-year entry rung, then a three-year rung at up to two and a half times the annual amount. Read as a schedule, it tells a first-time applicant something more useful — the realistic sequence is five years long, the first award is the smaller one by design, and what makes you eligible for $50,000 a year is having already run $20,000 a year well.
The five-year lookback cuts the other way for a former grantee: an organization funded four years ago is out of the introductory tier and into the continuation tier, which is the better place to be, while one funded six years ago is back at the entry rung.
When the Term Is the Term
Two records state the ending flatly.
Per the Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Foundation record, the grant provides $75,000 annually for up to three years, described as non-renewable, totaling up to $225,000, with no overhead costs covered. Funding is contingent on annual progress reports, and institutions are limited to a single proposal submission per session — which makes it a limited-submission program requiring an internal nomination before it is an application at all.
Three things follow. The $225,000 is the whole relationship, not a first installment. The no-overhead rule means the institution absorbs indirect costs for all three years. And the one-proposal-per-session limit means the first competition is internal: the deadline that matters is your own research office’s, which the record does not state.
Per the Mercers Older People & Housing guidelines, awards range from £50,000 to £120,000 in total, for up to three years, and generally will not exceed 50% of an organisation’s annual income in any given year. Funding may be a grant, a loan or another social investment, covering core, project or development costs. Applications run year-round as an Expression of Interest, the committee reviews twice a year, and the record puts the average time from EOI to final decision at 5–8 months (approximately 22.2 weeks) and the average success rate at about 1 in 6 for applications between April 2023 and March 2025.
That combination is worth doing the arithmetic on. A 1-in-6 rate and a 22-week decision window mean the expected calendar cost of this program runs well past one cycle, and the 50%-of-income ceiling means a smaller organisation’s maximum is set by its own accounts rather than by the £120,000. Individuals, capital costs outside a revenue application, general appeals and costs already incurred are excluded, and applicants are expected to pay the Real Living Wage.
The Agreement That Expires, and the Fifth of It You Must Already Have
Per the Government of Quebec’s Support Program for Organizations Serving the English-Speaking Communities record, financial assistance comes in two components: core funding under Component 1 on agreements of up to three years, and project support under Component 2 on agreements of up to two years. Grants cover up to 80% of eligible expenses, with a minimum of 20% to be covered by the applicant or its partners. The record’s amount range is 100,000 to 2,500,000 and does not state a currency.
Two dates in the record are the operative facts for anyone reading it this week: funds allocated for 2026–2027 are fully committed, and new applications will start being accepted on April 1, 2027. This is a program to calendar, not to apply to now.
The 20% floor belongs in the same conversation as the step-down. A term agreement that covers four-fifths of eligible expenses and expires on a stated date asks the same question Murdock’s third year asks — where does the rest come from, and does it survive the agreement?
A Match That Closes the Next Door
The last shape is rarer, and it is the one most likely to be read as pure upside.
Per the Lutheran Legacy Foundation record, organizations starting a new endowment can take Startup Grants — a 50% match on the first $10,000 — or Accelerator Grants, a 20% match on future gifts up to $500,000. There is also a Founding Legacy Match of $175,000, paid over three years, for new endowments started with $1,000,000 or more. Endowments that take it are then ineligible for future Accelerator Grants.
For individuals establishing Designated Funds, the record states a $5,000 bonus match on initial gifts of $20,000, and an Accelerator bonus of $1,000 for each $5,000 gift, up to five times per fund, for a $5,000 maximum match. In every case the applicant must be starting a new fund with the foundation, must raise part of the initial gift from its own community, and must use matching funds to build the endowment rather than spend them directly.
The trade-off is arithmetic you can run. A 20% match on gifts up to $500,000 is worth up to $100,000 and stays available; $175,000 paid over three years is larger and closes that channel. Which is better depends entirely on how much you expect to raise into the endowment after the founding gift — a question about your own pipeline, not about the program.
Reading the Schedule Before the Ceiling
Four questions, in this order, work on all seven of these records.
- Does the award amount change by year? If it does, the number that matters is the last year’s. A 100%/67%/33% schedule on a $90,000 position is a $30,000 obligation you take on in year three.
- Is the term renewable, and when may you reapply? “Non-renewable” and “eligible again three years after the award date” are both end dates, and with the term they give you the real planning horizon — six years in Murdock’s case.
- What share is yours? An 80% cap, a 50%-of-income ceiling, a 50% equipment contribution and a 67% step-down in year two are the same field with different numbers in it.
- Does accepting this foreclose something else? Two of the seven say yes — the Clowes introductory tier via its five-year lookback, and the Founding Legacy Match via the Accelerator exclusion.
None of those four is a structured field you can filter on, which is why a schedule like this surfaces only by reading the record. OpenGrants indexes 43,000+ open opportunities across federal, state, local, foundation and corporate sources (OpenGrants data, verified October 13, 2026), refreshed daily (OpenGrants data, verified August 10, 2026), which is what makes it possible to put seven funders’ award schedules next to each other rather than reconstructing each one from a separate PDF.
Questions People Ask
Is a step-down grant worth taking if we cannot cover year three yet? That is a budgeting decision rather than an eligibility one, and the records do not answer it. What they do say is that the obligation is disclosed in advance: Murdock’s 33% year is in the guidelines before the Letter of Intent.
Does “non-renewable” mean we can never apply to that funder again? Not necessarily; the two are different rules. The Mallinckrodt record describes the award itself as non-renewable, while the Murdock record separately states when a past grantee may submit a new Letter of Intent. Where a record states only one, the other is unresolved — a question for the funder, not an assumption.
Why would a funder cap an award at a share of our income? The records state the rule, not the reasoning. What matters operationally is that this ceiling is computed from your accounts, so two organizations reading the same program see different maximums. Mercers’ guidance is generally not more than 50% of annual income in any given year.
The Quebec program is listed as open. Can we apply? Not for the current year. The record states that funds for 2026–2027 are fully committed and that new applications will start being accepted April 1, 2027. A listing that stays visible while its money is committed is common, which is why the application-window line is worth reading before the eligibility criteria.
The Bottom Line
An award ceiling tells you how much. An award schedule tells you for how long, on what curve, and what you have to show to get the next one. Seven current records state that schedule plainly — a published step-down, a fixed non-renewable term, a two-rung ladder with a five-year lookback, term agreements with a 20% floor, and a match that closes a later channel — and in every case it changes what the proposal must contain before it changes the budget.
So find the year the money gets smaller, write it in your own calendar, and only then decide whether the program is a fit. The funders here have all done you the courtesy of publishing it.
More listing-reading mechanics sit in the OpenGrants knowledge base, with the rest of this series under tips and resources and closer looks at individual programs in the funding profiles archive. When the question is about a funder’s whole portfolio rather than one award, the funder directory is the faster route. Subscribe to Funding Friday, our weekly grant digest.
Every figure and rule above comes from the grant records as indexed on OpenGrants, read on October 14, 2026: Murdock’s 100%/67%/33% three-year basis, 50% equipment contribution, three-year operating-history and funding-diversification requirements and three-year re-application interval; the Clowes Fund’s $40,000-over-two-years introductory tier with its five-year lookback, $60,000/$90,000/$150,000 continuation tiers and November 1, 2026 deadline; New Mexico’s one-year renewal cap of roughly $75,000 restricted to coordinator salary and benefits; Mallinckrodt’s $75,000 a year for up to three years, non-renewable, $225,000 total, no overhead and one proposal per institution per session; Mercers’ £50,000–£120,000 over up to three years, 50%-of-annual-income guidance, 5–8 month decision window and approximately 1-in-6 success rate for April 2023–March 2025; Quebec’s three-year and two-year components, 80% cost coverage, 20% applicant minimum and April 1, 2027 reopening; and Lutheran Legacy’s 50% match on the first $10,000, 20% match up to $500,000, and $175,000 Founding Legacy Match with its Accelerator exclusion. Items are deliberately absent where the records do not supply them — Murdock’s record states no award amounts and no deadline, the New Mexico and Mercers records state no application deadline, and the Quebec record states amounts without naming a currency. Nothing here predicts an outcome for any applicant. Confirm every term against the official pages linked above before it becomes a plan.