Sapling Fund

Goals and Strategies

The Laird Norton family continually promotes the advancement of intellectual growth, business experience, and philanthropic focus in order to ensure the excellence of its youngest generations. Through the Sapling Fund, young Laird Norton family members (ages 14–21) come together to learn about grantmaking, the nonprofit sector, and family philanthropy. The Sapling Fund provides young family members a chance to identify and support causes that resonate with them, and endows future family leaders with a sense of fiscal and social responsibility.

Approach

Sapling Fund grants are guided by a “for kids, from kids” philosophy. Grants support programs and organizations that cater specifically to youth and specific priorities change each year as new cohorts of Sapling members collectively identify shared priorities for the year’s grantmaking.

Why Take This Approach?

Sapling Fund committee members gain valuable experience by organizing an annual campaign to raise money for their grantmaking activities through contributions from Laird Norton family members. The annual budget supports three to five grant awards each year and an all-family service project organized by members of the committee.

2020 Sapling Fund Grants

Access Youth Academy

Access Youth Academy (San Diego, CA) $4,750
​For general operating support. ​Access Youth Academy’s mission to transform the lives of underserved youth through academic enrichment, health and wellness, social responsibility and leadership through squash.

Breakthrough Central Texas

Breakthrough Central Texas (Austin, TX) $1,000
​For general operating support. Breakthrough Central Texas’s mission to create a path to and through college for students who will become the first in their families to earn a college degree.​

Caring for Cambodia

Caring for Cambodia (Austin, TX) $5,750
​For general operating support. Caring for Cambodia's (CFC) provides a high-quality education for 6,800 students at 21 schools in Cambodia, from preschool to 12th grade. CFC schools train teachers, provide clean and modern classrooms, as well as the essentials for students' health and welfare (clean water, two meals each day, school uniforms, personal hygiene supplies, and bicycles for transportation). CFC builds Cambodian leadership to guide and sustain these schools, so that generations of CFC graduates can reach their highest potential and make valuable contributions to their community.

Classroom of the Future

Classroom of the Future (San Diego, CA) $4,750
For general operating support. Classroom of the Future’s mission to unite business, community, and educational leaders in San Diego County public schools to create innovating learning environments that prepare students to thrive in a competitive, global society.

Coffee Oasis

Coffee Oasis (Tacoma, WA) $5,500
For general operating support. The Coffee Oasis is a faith-based organization that serves homeless youth in Kitsap and Pierce Counties through street and school outreach, youth centers and resources, case management and mentoring, job training and internships, shelter and supportive housing, and counseling and crisis care.

Friends of Explorer Post 58

Friends of Explorer Post 58 (Portland, OR) $4,000
For general operating support. Post 58 offers Portland-area teenagers the opportunity to engage in outdoor adventures under the guidance of experienced adults. Their mission is to provide an arena for personal growth and social interaction by creating diverse experiences that foster responsibility, respect, and a passion for the outdoors.

Friends of the Children, Tacoma

Friends of the Children (Tacoma, WA) $6,250
General operating support for Friends of the Children Tacoma chapter. Friends of the Children is a proven, professional mentoring program for youth that in or are at great risk of entering the foster care system. Children receive 14-16 hours of one-on-one support each month from a salaried, full-time, professional mentor called a Friend, creating an intentional, stable relationship with a caring adult.

NICURAGUAN EDUCATION RESOURCE CENTER (CREA)

Nicaraguan Education Resource Center (CREA) 
(Oakland, CA) $6,250
For general operating support. CREA's mission is to inspire rural Nicaraguans through literacy and education through three core initiatives: Library Services, Educational Outreach, and Youth Development.

Outdoor Outreach

Outdoor Outreach (San Diego, CA) $1,000
For general operating support. Outdoor Outreach utilizes outdoor physical experiences to provide youth with the support, relationship, resources and opportunities they need to become successful adults.

San Diego Refugee Tutoring

San Diego Refugee Tutoring (San Diego, CA) $5,250
For general operating support. SDRT provides after school activities, community, leadership opportunities, and tutoring for students and siblings of a growing refugee population in San Diego.​

Son of a Saint

Son of a Saint (New Orleans, LA) $5,500
For general operating support. Son of a Saint’s mission to enhance the lives of fatherless boys through mentorship, emotional support, development of life skills, exposure to constructive experiences and formation of positive, lasting peer-to-peer relationships.