Greetings,

 

We are excited to share this limited submission opportunity from the Cabot Family Charitable Trust. The Trust provides support in the areas of arts and culture, education and youth development, environment and conservation, health and human services, and civic and public benefit, with the goal of improving life for children and families in Boston and contiguous communities. Harvard University is limited to submitting one proposal to the Cabot Family Charitable Trust's Fall 2026 cycle. More information about this award and internal selection process can be found in the synopsis and links below. For a full list of currently open opportunities that have been announced through our office, please visit our new Current Opportunities web page. As a reminder, our Research Development team is available to provide proposal development support to FAS ladder faculty.

 

Cabot Family Charitable Trust: Fall 2026 Grant Cycle

  • Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: August 2, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET
  • OSP Deadline, if selected: August 25, 2026 at 9:00 AM ET
    Departments or areas may require additional time for proposal review and submission. Please discuss a timeline with your departmental or FORA grants administrator.
  • Sponsor Deadline, if selected: September 1, 2026
  • Award Amount: $5,000 to $50,000; funding is typically for one year.
    This sponsor does not have a published overhead policy. Per the FAS and SEAS Policy on Assessments on Current Use Gifts and Sponsored Awards, non-federal sponsored awards to the FAS and SEAS must include a 15% indirect cost rate. Please discuss this with your grants administrator before preparing an application. 
 

Program Overview

 

The Cabot Family Charitable Trust (CFCT) funds nonprofit organizations working to make life better for children and families in Boston and contiguous communities (Brookline, Cambridge, Canton, Chelsea, Dedham, Everett, Milton, Needham, Newton, Quincy, Revere, Somerville, Watertown, and Winthrop). The Trust will consider grant requests for specific programs and activities, as well as for general operations. Within the fields listed in Funding Areas, as appropriate, the trustees prefer programs mainly serving youth and young adults, with a special interest in programs focused on ensuring the healthy growth and development of infants and young children, as a foundation for their future success. Note that while a program may be well aligned with the CFCT mission, and make a compelling case for funding, proposals that introduce a new program within a finite timeframe, under the auspices of an established program, are of interest to the Foundation. The trustees are unlikely to fund policy advocacy unless it is part of a larger program that has direct service components. The Trust makes awards twice a year but will only accept one application from an organization within a 12-month period.

 

Funding Areas

  • Arts and Culture
  • Education and Youth Development
  • Environment and Conservation
  • Health and Human Services
  • Civic and Public Benefit
 

Eligibility Criteria

  • Competitive applications will meet the following criteria:
    • Reflect Cabot family interests and provide benefits to communities and organizations that have been supported by family philanthropy.
    • Extend important services to individuals and groups not served adequately through other programs and institutions.
    • Manage change by assessing community needs and developing programs to meet emerging needs.
    • Promote productive cooperation and full use of resources by nonprofit organizations and community groups.
    • Test new approaches to problems or adapt solutions that have been successful elsewhere.
 

Harvard Pre-Proposal Materials

  • PI Name, title, affiliation, CV
    • As applicable for Co-PI/s and/or Collaborators: name, title, affiliation, CV
  • Proposal Type (program/project, or general operating expenses)
  • Total Funding Requested ($5,000 to $50,000)
  • Complete the CFCT Budget Form
  • Project Funding Period (up to one year) 
  • Has the PI received prior funding from the Cabot Family Charitable Trust?
  • Two to three sentence summary of the project or program that funding from the CFCT would support.
  • Geographic area(s) where program or services will take place 
  • Geographic area(s) of the clients and/or beneficiaries of the proposed program or project 
  • A response, no more than one page, double spaced, 11 point font min. to each of the following questions:
    • What is the proposed plan of activities? Indicate how funds from the CFCT will be used support this work.
    • Why is this work important? How will this program or project benefit the community? Does it express a specific need? Describe the population to be served by this work.
    • What does the PI hope to achieve and how will the PI know if they are succeeding? Include both qualitative and quantitative measures. If the program is already operational, consider sharing recent outcomes and impact as well.
    • (Optional) If applicable, what partnerships/collaborations will be involved with the proposed activities?
 

Limited Submission Details

 
This is a limited submission opportunity and Harvard University is limited to submitting one proposal to the Cabot Family Charitable Trust's Fall 2026 cycle. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research is collecting applications to facilitate selection of Harvard’s nominee. To be considered for the Harvard nomination, potential applicants must submit an internal pre-proposal by 11:59 PM on August 2, 2026, via the link above.
 

Additional Information and Resources

 

The Cabot Family Charitable Trust lists recently-awarded grants in its Annual Reports—view the 2025 Annual Report. Applicants may wish to preview the grant application; Harvard's nominee will submit via the Trust's grant application portal. 

 

Recent recipients include Harvard's Arnold Arboretum in 2021 for the Arboretum Young Scientists program, which offered outdoor life sciences study to middle school students in the Boston Public Schools. 

 

After Cabot Family Charitable Trust staff researches and reviews grant applications, its trustees make the final decision on all grant awards. For proposals submitted in September, applicants will be notified of the outcome of their request in December. 

 

Questions from FAS or SEAS faculty about this opportunity may be directed to Research Development.

 

Requests for support related to the application portal may be directed to the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.
FUNDING SEARCH RESOURCES
All FAS Research Development newsletters are currently on pause. We will continue to send out information related to limited submission opportunities and other notable opportunities on a one-off basis. Additionally, the funding search resources below are available to all members of the Harvard community:
 
SEARCH FOR OPPORTUNITIES WITH PIVOT
All Harvard affiliates can search for opportunities and set up alerts using Pivot, a searchable database of federal and private funding opportunities. Information on Pivot, including a one-page user guide, and other funding opportunity databases available to the Harvard community can be found at research.fas.harvard.edu/funding-databases.
 
PIVOT CURATED SEARCHES
Curated funding opportunity lists are funding search topics of broad interest. The following curated lists can be viewed as a search and further refined based on your funding needs. To view the results you must be on a Harvard network or logged in to your Pivot account. Information on setting up a Pivot account can be found in our one-page user guide. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional curated lists are available at research.fas.harvard.edu/funding-opportunities. We continue to add to and refine these lists based on feedback. Please feel free to reach out to us at research_development@fas.harvard.edu with any suggestions you may have.
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