🚀 GrantTalk Ep 37 | Can Grants Turn Failure into Innovation | Tim Tramble Sr. of St Luke’s Foundation

In this episode of GrantTalk, Libby Hikind, CEO of GrantWatch and author of The Queen of Grants: From Teacher to Grant Writer to CEO, sits down with Tim Tramble, President & CEO of St. Luke's Foundation of Cleveland, to discuss innovative funding strategies for nonprofits and grassroots organizations. Tim shares his foundation's unique funding approach, which prioritizes community impact over administrative strength, ensuring that organizations with deep local ties get the resources they need.

He explains The Saint Luke's Foundation - Cleveland's three-tier funding model, including:

✅ Community Grants (up to $6,000) – Available to grassroots groups, including informal community initiatives.

✅ Staff Discretionary Grants (up to $25,000) – Based on the foundation's strategic focus areas.

✅ Board Grants (typically $40,000–$80,000) – For larger-scale projects with long-term impact. Tim explains that the St. Luke's Foundation priority is racial equity in grantmaking, the importance of grassroots efforts, how failure sometimes can lead to innovation and success, and how funders can invest in communities rather than dictate solutions. Tim Tramble said, "People who are wealthy have the power to make mistakes. They have the liberty to implement their own ideas. Those are the things that allow innovation to happen." He emphasized how trial and error, experimentation, and the ability to fail without severe consequences often lead to breakthroughs. How St. Luke’s Foundation, A Private Foundation Gives Out $8 Million in Grants Per Year and Fosters Innovation by Reducing the Fear of Failure

✅ Equitable, Trust-Based Philanthropy St. Luke’s operates on the principle of trust-based philanthropy, meaning they invest in organizations with strong community ties, even if they lack administrative experience. They focus on real impact over polished applications, ensuring that smaller, community-led groups have access to funding.

✅ Encouraging Experimentation & Risk-Taking Unlike traditional grant makers, St. Luke’s takes risks on new ideas and untested solutions if they show promise for real change. They recognize that innovation requires trial and error, and they give grantees the space to adapt and learn from their experiences.

✅ Funding Grassroots Organizations That Haven’t Had a Shot Tim said that many BIPOC-led and community-driven organizations struggle to access major funding due to administrative barriers. St. Luke’s intentionally funds these groups, allowing them to develop, fail, adjust, and grow—just like well-funded organizations in wealthier communities.

✅ Multiple Funding Levels to Support Growth By offering different grant tiers (community grants, discretionary grants, and board grants), organizations can start small, test ideas, and later expand. This structure ensures that organizations don’t need to be perfect from the start—they can refine their programs over time.

✅ Failure as a Path to Innovation Tim Tramble compares this approach to companies like 23andMe, which operated at a loss for years while refining their product. Wealthier organizations can endure multiple failures before finding success—and St. Luke’s Foundation is working to extend that ability to community-led initiatives. By investing in people and ideas rather than just polished proposals, St. Luke’s empowers organizations to take risks, innovate, and ultimately create lasting change.

🚀 GrantWatch actively monitors the evolving funding landscape—tracking federal grants, new foundation grants, private foundation grants and emerging opportunities. With thousands of active grants across various sectors, organizations can find alternative funding sources beyond federal aid.

📍 Geographic Focus: St. Luke’s Foundation primarily funds projects in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, with a special emphasis on three Cleveland neighborhoods. However, similar funding models exist nationwide, and nonprofit