The F.M. Kirby Foundation in Morristown, New Jersey, has announced that it awarded 255 grants totaling more than $15.4 million in 2023, an increase of more than 7.5 percent year-over-year.

Grants were awarded to organizations in the areas of arts, culture, and humanities ($2.1 million), education ($3.9 million), environment and animals ($1.86 million), health ($2 million), human services ($3.95 million), public affairs ($1.2 million), and religion ($112,000). More than half of the grants (51 percent) were provided as general operating support and over 140 grants (55 percent) were awarded to organizations that have been Kirby’s funding partners for more than 25 years. Grants awarded in New Jersey and North Carolina—the foundation’s primary geographic areas of interest—accounted for $9.1 million in support, more than 69 percent of all funding.

In addition, through the foundation’s partnership with the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the third annual Kirby Prize for Scaling Social Impact—an unrestricted $100,000 grant—was awarded to Essmart, an India-based organization working internationally to connect rural shop owners with socially impactful technologies.

For a complete list of grant recipients, see the F.M. Kirby website.

(Photo credit: Wikimedia/Jared Kofsky)