Through our grantmaking, we are expanding the capacity of organizations to help Texans create prosperity.  Our Innovation and Investment Fund awards grants to Texas-based entities to develop new asset building programs or expand successful ones.  We award grants annually and grant applications are by invitation.

Our grantmaking priorities

• Projects that serve underserved individuals and Texas communities.
• Projects with potential to scale and/or offer new learning opportunities.

2012 OpportunityTexas Innovation and Investment Fund Grant Recipients

• Foundation Communities and United Ways of Texas - Project support to build client savings by incentivizing VITA site filers to save a portion of their tax refund by purchasing U.S. Savings Bonds.

2011 OpportunityTexas Innovation and Investment Fund Grant Recipients

• Catholic Charities Diocese of Ft Worth, Inc. - Established two new VITA sites in a rural county through a mobile VITA site that provided services for the 2011 tax season
• Texas Council on Economic Education - Started the Smarter Texas financial education program, which integrates financial education into the public school curriculum in grades K-12.  See this video to learn more about TCEE and Smarter Texas.
• Foundation Communities and United Ways of Texas - Project support to build client savings by incentivizing VITA site filers to save a portion of their tax refund by purchasing U.S. Savings Bonds.

Read our April 2011 blog post, which highlights Foundation Communities' project, and our February 2011 blog post, which highlights the tax time savings project of Greater Longview United Way, one of United Way of Texas' grantees.

We will provide updates on our website on the projects we are funding, lessons learned, and best practices, which will help organizations share experiences and inform organizations of innovative approaches to increase economic opportunity.

Read our report, Texas Saves at Tax Time 2011, which outlines best practices to operating a tax-time savings project.