Show Your Work is a series from the Trust on how we operate, how we make decisions, and why we think the community deserves more than our word for it.
One of the most common things we hear from the nonprofit community goes something like this: “We used to get more.” “We used to always get funded.” “We applied and got nothing.” “Why?”
These are fair questions. They deserve a direct answer.
Here it is: whether an organization gets funded at all has almost always come down to mission fit, not money. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is how far the dollars stretch for the organizations we do fund. Since 2022, the gap between what approved, mission-aligned organizations ask for and what the Trust can actually award them, what we’ll call the funding gap, has grown substantially, from $230,000 to $2.72 million. The decline rate has stayed low and consistent since 2021. The gap has not.
How general operating grants work
The Trust’s general operating grants are two-year commitments of up to $80,000 per year, for a maximum of $160,000 over the full grant period. Awards pay out in equal halves, half in year one and half in year two, giving grantees two years of planning stability rather than annual uncertainty.
But the maximum is not the average. In 2021, before many non-profits were even aware of our grants and before we launched any programming, the average two-year grant award was approximately $150,000. In 2025, the average two-year award is approximately $67,000. The dollars go less far when more qualified organizations are competing for the same pool.
An organization that received a larger award in an earlier cycle is not being penalized. The pool of dollars is finite. The pool of organizations asking for them is not.
How funding decisions get made
The Trust uses a rubric to evaluate general operating grant applications. It looks at two things: an organization’s infrastructure, to ensure the Trust is making sound stewardship decisions, and an organization’s programs and services, to assess alignment with the Trust’s focus areas.
No organization is expected to meet every criterion. Alignment is one factor, alongside financial health, programming, and the dollars available in a given cycle. An in-person meeting with Trust staff is part of every application process. The rubric is public. Organizations can read it, use it when preparing their applications, and see clearly where their work fits.
What the numbers show
Since the Trust’s first grant cycle in 2021, the number of organizations applying for general operating grants has grown 56%, from 34 applications to 53 in 2025. Whether an individual organization is approved has consistently come down to mission fit. Every declined application across every year we have records for was declined for reasons of alignment or eligibility, not because the money ran out: capital campaigns we don’t fund, organizations outside our focus areas, requests better suited to a different grant type.
What has changed is the size of the funding gap for organizations we do approve. In 2021, our first year, the Trust fully funded all 27 approved organizations. In 2022, a significant market downturn led the Trust to revisit its spending approach, and that is when the current $80,000-per-year cap on general operating grants was established. That year marks the first time our records show a real funding gap: the 13 organizations we funded asked for a combined $2.1 million and received $1.86 million, a gap of $230,000.
That gap has grown every year since: $717,820 in 2023, $1.32 million in 2024, and $2.72 million in 2025, when 43 approved organizations requested a combined $5.6 million and received $2.88 million.
The chart above shows this directly: whether an organization is approved has stayed consistent since 2021. How much of that approved request the Trust can actually fund has not.
What this data includes, and what it doesn’t
These figures cover general operating grant applications only, and dollar amounts reflect two-year award totals.
2021 shows no funding gap in the chart because the grantmaking process was different in our infancy, at a time where we had not yet established a structure or identity but still had a lot of money that we legally needed to grant. The $4.04 million budget was fully awarded to the 27 approved organizations that year, with grant amounts reflecting our shared understanding of what they each needed. The required annual distribution to Banner Wyoming Medical Center is not included anywhere in this analysis, because it is not a grant. It is a contractual obligation. Post 2 in this series covers how that distribution works and why it exists. Staff-driven rapid response grants are also excluded, as they fall outside the competitive application process.
The total community investment has stayed relatively consistent. How it is divided has changed.
Looking at the full picture, what the Trust invests in the community each year through grants, programs, and direct services, the total has remained relatively steady since 2021.
What has changed is how that pool is divided, and that change has been intentional.
Grantmaking is one tool the Trust uses to improve health and well-being in Natrona County. It is not the only one. Over the past several years, we have deliberately grown our investment in advocacy, research, and strategic community initiatives, work aimed not just at funding the services our community needs today, but at addressing the root causes that create that need in the first place. Improving access to care, reducing adverse childhood experiences, and strengthening the systems and policies that shape long-term health outcomes are the kind of upstream investments that, done well, can reduce reliance on the direct services our nonprofit partners provide.
That is a deliberate shift, not a departure from our mission. Dollars that once flowed entirely through general operating grants now also support participatory grantmaking, direct programs like the Imagination Library and the Community Case Manager position at CAPNC, translation services, scholarships, and the advocacy and research work described above. The “how the pool is divided” tab in the chart shows that shift year by year.
The result is that the dollars available for general operating grants specifically have not grown at the same pace as demand, even though the Trust’s total community investment has held steady. Both things are true, and we think both are worth understanding.
Why the pool cannot simply grow
The endowment is designed to generate returns in perpetuity and distribute a portion of those returns each year. Post 3 in this series explains the structure in detail. The short version: the Trust is not holding money back from the community. The distribution is calibrated so the endowment can do this work in 2075 and beyond. Over time, as the endowment grows, the community investment pool will grow with it. That growth is measured and gradual, not reactive to annual demand.
What this means for organizations working with the Trust
We are publishing this data because organizations deserve to understand the environment they are applying into. If your organization was declined, it is almost certainly a question of fit, timing, or readiness, not the value of your work. If your organization was funded at less than you requested, that is the real and growing pressure this post is about: the pool of approved, aligned organizations has grown, and the dollars available to fully fund them have not kept pace.
We are not going to pretend those decisions are easy or that the outcomes are painless. They are not.
What we can offer is transparency about the math, consistency in how we evaluate applications, and a commitment to being clear about what we fund and why. The full rubric, focus areas, eligibility criteria, and grant cycle timeline are on our grantmaking page. If you have questions about a specific funding decision, reach out to our programs team. We would rather have that conversation directly than leave organizations guessing.
We’re already halfway through 2026. The Trust’s board has approved $2.98 million in general operating grants for this year’s spring and fall cycles combined, and the spring cycle alone shows the same pattern: approved, mission-aligned organizations requested $3.5 million and the Trust was able to grant 28% of what was asked. The gap between what our partners need and what we can provide keeps growing. We intend to keep publishing that math every year, not just when the numbers are easy to share.
