Applications are now open for the next round of the Nike Community Impact Fund,with $250,000 in cash grants being offered to area nonprofits and schools.

The Nike Community Impact Fund – formerly called the Nike Employee Grant Fund – seeks to benefit communities where Nike employees live, work, and play in the greater Portland area (Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Yamhill, and Columbia countiesin Oregon and Clark county in southwest Washington). If you have a project at Jackson that you think qualifies for this grant, please contact the PTA with more information.

Grants are one-year awards totaling between $5,000 and $20,000 each. Grants primarily support organizations and projects that are creating a world where physical activity, play and sports are highly valued, with some of the grants awarded to support organizations and projects that address community challenges through innovative community-based solutions.

The full set of guidelines, along with the streamlined and straightforward online application, are available at www.oregoncf.org/nike.

A partnership with the Oregon Community Foundation, the Nike Community Impact Fund is an innovative approach to grantmaking that directly impacts communities in the metropolitan Portland region and Southwest Washington. A panel of Nike employees awards grants to organizations that promote sport and physical activity for youth, as well as to projects that address broader family and youth issues through sustainable, innovative and replicable community solutions. Since its inception in 2010, the program has awarded more than 250 grants to organizations with impact in the region and has benefited over half a million individuals.