In preparation for the online application, here is a quick checklist of items that may be required of your organization.

1. The exact name of the organization or agency making application.
2. A brief description of the organization.
3. Federal Tax ID #.
4. Provide a copy of your most recent Form 990.
5. A copy of the organization’s most recent tax-exempt ruling from the Internal Revenue Service.
6. A list of current board members.
7. A clear description of the project, the need, its purpose, the number of individuals affected, goals and expectations.
8. Description of similar programs in the community.
9. Total of all funds required for the project and other sources of funding.
10. Amount requested from The Hormel Foundation.
11. Expected completion date.
12. A detailed expense budget for the project, showing where and how the requested funds would be spent.
13. Audited accounting statements for the previous year, if available, and if not available, then most recently prepared internal accounting statements.
14. The procedure and criteria by which effectiveness of the grant should be judged after the grant funds have been expended.
15. Within 90 days following the end of the period for which funds were granted, the grantee must provide The Hormel Foundation with a final financial accounting for the grant funds (a Grant Use Report), and an evaluation and summary of the results obtained.

• The bulk of the assets that were contributed to establish The Hormel Foundation bore restrictions that permit grants only to organizations in the Austin and/or Mower County area.
• Grants are made only to organizations ruled tax exempt by the Internal Revenue Service and no grants are made to individuals. Recipient organizations must be operated for charitable, educational or scientific purposes with no part of their funds benefit any private shareholder or individual.
• The Foundation prefers to participate with other donors.
• No grants are made to support projects which attempt to influence legislation or to organizations whose activities are substantially in the area of promoting or publicizing a particular cause or view in an attempt to influence legislation.
• The total amount of annual grants is limited to the annual income from investments so that income producing corpus will not be reduced.
• All commitments for emergency grant requests are made by the Board of Directors. Emergency grant requests received prior to a regular meeting date will be circulated among the members and will be considered at that meeting.