Announcing the Julie L. Rogers Sabbatical Program

​Today the Meyer Foundation is launching a new sabbatical grants program that was established by our board of directors to honor Julie Rogers, who served as Meyer’s president from 1986 to 2014.

The Julie L. Rogers Sabbatical Program, which we first announced at Julie’s farewell party in 2014, provides executive directors of Meyer Foundation grantees who have been in their jobs for seven or more years with the resources and time they need to restore their energy and inspiration.

The Meyer Foundation has long recognized that executive directors face a unique set of challenges. They are confronted with enormous demands and routine stress—often under intense conditions that offer little opportunity for reflection and personal renewal.

The Julie L. Rogers Sabbatical Program will provide capacity-building grants to enable executive directors to take significant time away from their day-to-day roles to reflect and recharge, and to strengthen their organizations in their absence.

Each year, the Meyer Foundation will provide up to three organizations with a grant of $50,000 each to allow their executives to take a three- to four-month sabbatical. To be eligible, organizations must be current grantees of the Meyer Foundation, have an executive director who has been in that role for at least seven years, and have an annual operating budget of at least $750,000.

Applications for the program are due by June 30, 2016. Sabbatical recipients will be announced in September 2016, and recipients are required to take their sabbatical within one year of the announcement. Full program guidelines are available here.

As head of the Meyer Foundation for nearly three decades, Julie Rogers was passionate about the essential role of nonprofit leaders in our community and the importance of providing tools and supports to help executive directors do their best work while avoiding burnout. With the launch of this new program, we honor Julie’s legacy and re-affirm the Meyer Foundation’s longstanding commitment to recognizing and supporting nonprofit leaders.

We hope you will share this announcement with eligible candidates within your networks. And thank you, as always, for all that you do in our community.

Nicky Goren is president and CEO of the Meyer Foundation.