• History & Focus

    The Axe-Houghton Foundation was funded in 1965 by the bequests of Emerson and Ruth Axe. The Foundation is operated exclusively for charitable and educational purposes.

    Its principal mission is to foster and encourage an appreciation of the English language, with major emphasis on the spoken language.

    Grant Guidelines

    The Foundation no longer accepts unsolicited proposals. Applications are accepted only from organizations who have been invited to apply. Please see Application Procedures below for further information.

    Limitations

    To be eligible to receive a grant from the Foundation, the proposed grantee must be either

    1. an organization which has been determined by the Internal Revenue Service to be a tax-exempt organization described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and “not a private foundation” within the meaning of Section 509(a) of the Internal Revenue Code,
    2. a “governmental unit” as referred to in Section 170(c)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, or
    3. an agency or instrumentality of a governmental unit, including, without limitation, a state college or university within the meaning of Section 511 (a)(2)(B) of the Internal Revenue Code.

    Grants are not made to individuals or private foundations. Grants also are not made to organizations whose work is produced outside of the United States.

    Grants are rarely made to organizations outside of the New York City metropolitan area.

    Priority is given to projects for the improvement of speech and its uses in the areas of theater, arts-in-education, poetry and spoken word, and debate and spoken word. All projects must include a significant phase which is subject to observation by an audience.

    Grant requests must be for a specific project or program. Grants are not given for, and therefore requests will not be considered for, general or capital support, scholarships or fellowships. Funds are limited; hence awards rarely exceed $10,000 and cannot be made to organizations whose annual budget exceeds $10 million.

    Application Procedure

    Applicants will be invited to submit proposals, via email, in June of our grant cycle. Instructions for submission of proposals will be provided in the notice of invitation.

    Proposals from invited applicants may be submitted at any time between July 1 and approximately September 1 of our grant cycle. For the next grant cycle, the deadline for submissions will be August 31, 2026 at 6 pm.

    For the current grant cycle, applicants will be notified of the outcome of their proposal by December 31, 2025, and grants will be paid to those receiving them by the end of February 2026.

    PLEASE NOTE that it is not possible to arrange personal interviews or to handle Foundation matters with Officers or Directors of the Foundation by telephone. 

    Summary of Recent Grants

    Grants made for the fiscal years ending 2/28/2025 and 2/28/2026, respectively.

    2025
    Range of Grant Amounts: $5,000 to $12,000
    Average Grant Amount: $8,039

    2026
    Range of Grant Amounts: $5,500 to $13,000
    Average Grant Amount: $8,504

    Contact Information

    All grant-related correspondence along with all information and invitations for all events relating to the project for the purpose of evaluating your work should be sent to:

    Jeffrey Steinman
    President
    E-mail: info@axe-houghtonfoundation.org

    All auditors’ letters and return of funds, if necessary, should be sent to:

    Carletta Fogle
    Client Services
    Axe-Houghton Foundation
    c/o Foundation Source
    55 Walls Drive, 3rd Floor
    Fairfield, CT 06824

    E-mail: cfogle@foundationsource.com
    Phone: (800) 839-1754
    Fax: (800) 421-6579

    Please do not send newsletters or advertisements to the email addresses.