2025 Call for Proposals Application

Thank you for your interest in the Sasaki Foundation Design Grants 2025 Call for Proposals.

Our mission is equity in design. Our Design Grants fund community experts to create design solutions for challenges in their neighborhoods. Focus communities must be located in Greater Boston or the Massachusetts Gateway Cities.

We will award up to 3 grants of $17,500 each to winning teams. Grant funding provides you with capacity to design the framework of your solution. Your grant work should move your project towards implementation. The Design Grants are not intended to provide operational or capital funding. To support your efforts, grants also include access to design experts at Sasaki, a world-renowned design firm.

Proposals are evaluated through the criteria of design, equity, inclusion, innovation, and impact.

Finalist teams will present their project ideas in person at Pitch Night, a public event on May 29, 2025. All finalist teams will receive an honorarium for their time at Pitch Night. Finalists also gain exposure to other potential project supporters.

A jury at Pitch Night will make recommendations to the Hideo Sasaki Foundation Board of Trustees, who will decide on funding.

Winning teams will spend 10 months working on their proposed projects.

The following interactive form will prompt you to enter important information about your proposal, your team members, and funding considerations. All fields are required unless otherwise noted. The application deadline is 12:00 p.m. (noon) on Thursday, April 24, 2025. The Sasaki Foundation will not consider late submissions.

Please note: proposals received by the Sasaki Foundation are considered open source and may appear on our website. If your team is selected as a finalist, we will use the descriptions provided in this application for publication. Ensure they are fully vetted before you submit.

Please review the 2025 Call for Proposals to confirm your project is a good fit for the Design Grants program.

We recommend compiling all information before beginning the application. Required information includes the following:

• Project Information

  • Project Name

  • Brief Project Descriptions (40- and 100-word versions to use for marketing purposes)

• Team Information

  • Team Leader (the point of contact for Sasaki Foundation staff)

  • Fiscal Agent (the public charity that will receive payment and manage project finances - can be outside the core project team)

• Team Member Information

  • Contact Information

  • Demographic Information

• Research Topic

• Project Information

  • Project Description

  • Goals and Objectives

  • Team Structure

  • Diversity and Inclusion

  • Timeline and Activities

  • Evaluation

  • Funding Considerations (project budget, including other funding sources if applicable)

If you would like to think through your answers offline, you may download this file. When ready, transfer your information to the online application. (If you are having trouble with the link, copy and paste https://www.sasakifoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/2025-Call-for-Proposals_Worksheet.docx into a new browser window.)

With all required information at hand, the form will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. You can save your application and return to it at a later time by clicking the "Save and Continue Later" link in the top right corner of any question screen and following the instructions. Please note, if you enter responses on a given screen, you must click “Next” before saving.

We recommend you type all open-ended responses into the downloadable file linked above or in a separate word-processing application (such as Microsoft Word) ahead of time to ensure you do not lose your information.

Once you complete the online application, you can review your information on screen and download your answers as a PDF. Please verify all information is correct before submitting.

An introduction video and FAQs are available at the end of the 2025 Call for Proposals. Submit additional questions in writing to info@sasakifoundation.org. The Sasaki Foundation will also host several events to answer questions and foster connections between prospective applicants. Learn more at the 2025 Call for Proposals page.