Grant and Funding Report

This report lists every grant, in-kind donation, volunteer-labor program, loan fund, tax credit, and public appropriation that the research found for First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown and for the Rosenwald school building it owns. Every program was checked at the funder's own website or the official government portal on September 18, 2026, and the date of the check is written on each entry. Nothing is included on the strength of a news story or a summary alone.

What the report contains. Fifty-three funding sources the church can still apply to, or can position itself for, are written up in full in Parts A, B and C. Each is placed in one of three buckets: money for the Rosenwald school building (Part A, 25 sources), money for the church itself (Part B, 3 sources), and money that could cover either building or a combined campus project (Part C, 25 sources). A further 60 programs were checked and set aside, with the reason, so the church does not spend time chasing them (Section 11). One master table (Section 9) lists all 53 sources in order of their next deadline.

The shape of the landscape. The two programs built for exactly this building, the National Park Service's African American Civil Rights preservation grant (federal share $75,000 to $750,000, no match required) and the National Trust's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund National Grant Program ($50,000 to $150,000, no match required), are both between rounds. The federal round most likely reopens sometime in 2027; the Action Fund round is expected to open in mid-January 2027. The largest program for the church itself, the National Trust's Preserving Black Churches program ($50,000 to $500,000, no match), closed on September 11, 2026, one week before this report, and a further round is probable but not announced. The Kentucky African American Heritage Commission grant, which funded two Rosenwald school roofs in 2025 and names churches as eligible applicants, closed on September 7, 2026. The corporate program with the largest potential award, Lowe's Community Impact Grants (publicly called Lowe's Hometowns), is expected to reopen for nominations in mid-February 2027.

What is open right now. Eight sources have a date in the next six weeks, all of them small planning, interpretation or stabilization grants: Kentucky Humanities (September 30, letter of intent), the National Trust's Bruckheimer Fund for Kentucky, the National Trust Preservation Funds, and the Preservation Kentucky fund (all October 1), the Kentucky Historical Society Local History Trust Fund (October, window to be confirmed by phone), the James Graham Brown Foundation letter of interest (October 15), the LG&E and KU Foundation window (October 2026), and the Daughters of the American Revolution Historic Preservation Grant (October 31). Several rolling sources (Republic Bank, U.S. Bank, PNC, The Home Depot Foundation, GAF roofing, Vital Sites loans) can be started at any time.

Rules that shape what the church can ask for. Four findings changed the picture from what a first reading of these programs would suggest:

Programs the church cannot use. Save America's Treasures requires national significance, and the school's National Register listing is at the local (Jefferson County) level. USDA Rural Development's community facilities program caps eligible communities at 20,000 people, which Jeffersontown exceeds. The federal historic rehabilitation tax credit requires an income-producing building. The Paul Bruhn program requires a rural county. Several of the largest Louisville foundations (Gheens, Brown-Forman, Norton Healthcare) exclude churches or capital projects in writing.

What the church must supply. No application can be scored until the church has a conditions assessment and cost estimate for the school, a SAM.gov registration and Unique Entity Identifier for any federal or federally-passed-through dollar, the deed showing when and from whom it acquired the school, current photographs and a statement of the building's condition, and the community-use plan and non-discrimination policy mentioned above. Section 10 lists these in full, together with the calls the church should make. Section 3 explains where applications like this one are eliminated before they are scored, lists every document the top ten sources ask for, and gives a build order for this fall.

Facts still to be confirmed. The date the church acquired the school and the building's present condition are not documented anywhere the research could reach and must come from the church. The Louisville Metro Council district (District 11) is confirmed against the county's own council-district boundaries for both the church and the school. Items on individual entries marked "page blocked" or "confirm" were read from the funder's own text as indexed by search engines because the funder's page refused automated access on the day of the check.

This section is written for the church board. It says what to do this month, this fall, and in the first quarter of 2027, in that order, and why. It ends with a twelve-month calendar, honest odds for the ten sources that matter most, the three questions the research left open, and the fit scores that were changed.

The two funders that exist for exactly this building, the National Park Service African American Civil Rights preservation grant and the National Trust's Action Fund National Grant Program, both open in 2027, and both will ask for the same five things: proof of title, current photographs, a conditions assessment with a cost estimate written to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards, a plan for what the school will be used for, and a board that has already voted to apply. Everything between now and January is about producing those five things. The small grants that close in the next six weeks are worth taking only where they cost an afternoon; none of them will fix the roof, and chasing them instead of the prerequisites would cost the church the January window. The church-bucket money (Preserving Black Churches, the National Fund for Sacred Places) runs on a separate track that depends on one fact only the church can supply: the year the sanctuary was built.

A board should also hear this plainly: over the next twelve months the cash that actually arrives will be small, likely a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of dollars from planning and stabilization grants. The two large applications decide in July 2027 (Action Fund) and, at the earliest, late 2027 (National Park Service). If Preserving Black Churches runs a further round, it decides in February 2028. The work of the next year is to be the applicant those three programs want to fund when they open.

These eight items are prerequisites. Each one is named because at least one of the top ten sources cannot be filed without it.

Do the prerequisites. Take the three small applications that cost little. Skip the ones that need what the church does not yet have.

This is the quarter the year is built around. In order of importance:

Skip in this quarter: Humana Foundation (programs only, no heritage angle), the External Agency Fund (services only), and the IMLS museum grants (the church is not a museum). None of these change the outcome and each would take days the Action Fund application needs.

Dates marked "expected" are inferred from the funder's past cycles and should be confirmed when the funder posts them.

These are one person's judgment from the funder's side of the table, not the funder's numbers. They assume the prerequisites in 2.2 are done; without them, every line below is a decline.

Republic Bank is not in the ten because its award will be modest, but a specific-item request is more likely than not to be funded and it should go out this month.

Preserving Black Churches and the separate-parcel school. The school does not qualify under this program, and the church should not argue that it does. The Trust's rule is a parcel test. Its guidelines say "parsonages, annexes, and educational buildings located on the same parcel of land as the church building may be included in the project if the buildings are at least 50 years old," and its FAQ says "on the same lot and within the property line of the church." The county record answers it: the school sits on its own parcel, not adjacent to the sanctuary, about 664 feet away (Section 4.5). "Same owner, same county block" is true and does not meet "same parcel of land." Ask the Trust anyway (below), but do not build the application on the answer being yes. A reviewer who finds an eligibility stretch on page one reads the rest of the file looking for the next one, and the Action Fund runs a separate program, the National Grant Program, built for exactly this school. So: the church's Preserving Black Churches application is for the sanctuary, and it leads Part B of this report, but it does not lead the overall sequence, because the round that just closed was the 2027 cycle and the next is probable, not announced. The school's application goes to the National Grant Program in February 2027. Before filing either, the church should email actionfundgrants@savingplaces.org (in April 2027, for the church application) and ask four things: whether a 2028 Preserving Black Churches round will run and when; whether the sanctuary's build year qualifies it; whether a Project Planning grant under either program may cover a single preservation plan for both church-owned historic buildings, given the same-lot rule for capital; and whether applying to both programs in the same year is permitted and how the Trust prefers it be done. Ask, do not assume, and quote the answer in the application.

The LG&E and KU Foundation score (3 or 2) and the Humana Foundation score (2 or 1). LG&E and KU is a 2. The rubric's 2 is "eligible on paper but the funder's grant history shows no capital, heritage, or religious giving," which is what the foundation's published grant history shows; the October window changes when the church can ask, not how well the program fits. The church should still file if it can name an education program, because the form is short. Humana is a 2, not a 1. The rubric reserves 1 for programs the church is ineligible for or that no longer exist, and the Foundation names faith-based organizations as eligible. It stays a programs-only door for a senior social-connection program in the restored school, and nothing for the walls.

The National Park Service "expected 2027" timing. The FY2024 round closed September 5, 2024; the FY2025 notice posted June 11, 2026 and closed July 14, 2026. The Park Service is running about a year behind the appropriation, and the FY2026 money exists because Congress rejected the proposed elimination of the Historic Preservation Fund for that year: the FY2026 Interior act (H.R. 6938, signed January 23, 2026) carries $24,000,000 for African American Civil Rights grants, per the Park Service's FY2027 budget justification. On that pattern the FY2026 notice should post between May and August 2027 with a window of about 30 days. Two cautions. First, the FY2027 budget request zeroes the African American Civil Rights line specifically (it requests $11,000,000 for HBCU grants only), and the government is on a continuing resolution through December 11, 2026; if Congress accepts that, the FY2026 round is the last one for a while, which makes readiness more valuable, not less. Second, a 30-day window is not enough time to commission an assessment, pass a resolution, or register at SAM.gov. The church should be able to file from April 1, 2027 and treat the notice as a trigger, not a start.

Three scores were adjusted, each with a line of reasoning in the entry itself. All other scores stand as recorded in the entries.

One score that was considered and left alone: Lowe's Community Impact Grants stays a 5. The odds are low because of volume, not fit, and the rubric measures fit; the odds are stated in 2.8.

This section is for the board, and it answers a plain question: where do applications like this one fail, and what does it take to be the applicant that gets funded? The short answer is that most applications are decided before anyone scores them. A funder's staff run a file through a series of gates, in a fixed order, and a file that fails a gate is set aside without a reviewer ever reading the story. The gates are not mysterious. Each one is answered by a document, and every document is something the church can produce this fall. Section 3.1 walks the gates in the order a funder hits them and says, for each, what fails, how often, and what passing looks like for this church. Section 3.2 lists every document the top ten sources will ask for. Section 3.3 puts those documents in build order with dates. Section 3.4 describes what a reviewer is looking for once the file clears the gates and is finally read.

Two facts about the church shape everything below. First, the church has never applied for a grant on this building (Section 4.7), so every funder will treat it as a first-time applicant: no track record to lean on, but also no history to explain. Second, the church is a church, and roughly half the programs in this report admit a church only under a condition, usually that the funded space or program is open to everyone without regard to religion. Neither fact is a weakness if the file anticipates it.

The order below is the order a funder's staff actually work. A file that fails at point one is never seen at point six.

What fails. The applicant is not registered where the funder requires, or cannot prove what it is. For any federal dollar, including money that passes through Kentucky or Louisville Metro, that means an active SAM.gov registration and a Unique Entity Identifier. The National Park Service notice, Kentucky Humanities, FEMA's security grant, Metro's block grant, and both earmark paths all require it, and Grants.gov will not accept a submission without it. For private funders it means the IRS determination letter, a current W-9, and proof of good standing. Metro's Neighborhood Development Fund and External Agency Fund also require good standing with the Kentucky Secretary of State, the Metro Revenue Commission and the Metro Human Relations Commission. The two small National Trust funds require organizational membership in the Trust's Preservation Leadership Forum before funds are released, not before applying; the church can file both on October 1 without it. Kentucky Humanities is the one case where the registration gate is later than it looks: its September 30 date is a letter of intent, and SAM.gov must be active by the October 31 full application; the real gate there is the humanities scholar who must have agreed to serve.

How often. This is the most common way a small organization's first federal application dies, and it dies quietly: the portal refuses the file, or the registration is still pending on deadline day. SAM.gov takes weeks, and longer when a name or address on the IRS record does not match the state record exactly. Private funders are more forgiving, but a missing IRS letter or W-9 makes a file incomplete, and the Kentucky African American Heritage Commission's form states plainly that incomplete applications are the one thing it excludes.

What passing looks like here. The church already has its legal status: EIN 61-0730354, 501(c)(3), listed in IRS Publication 78 (Section 4.2). Three gaps remain. The church has no SAM.gov registration; start it the week this report is read, assign one person to own the login, and put the annual renewal on the calendar. The IRS determination letter is dated 2025, which will prompt "how long have you existed?" from any funder with an age rule; the answer is the congregation's 1833 organization and its long-standing exemption as a church, and the church should keep a one-paragraph explanation with the letter. And no one has yet opened the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search in a browser and saved a screenshot of the church's listing (Section 4.8, item U1); do that once and keep it in the grant file.

What fails. The applicant or the property is outside the rule. Four rules matter for this church.

The parcel. Preservation funders fund a specific property, and they check that the applicant owns it and that the listed building sits on the parcel named. The county record shows the church as owner of the school parcel and ties the National Register listing to that parcel (Section 4.5). But the deed itself, showing when and from whom the church acquired the school, has not been produced (Section 4.8, item U2), and the National Trust programs ask for the recorded instrument at application. The parcel is also why the school cannot go into the Preserving Black Churches program: that program funds auxiliary buildings only "on the same lot and within the property line of the church," and the school is on its own parcel about 660 feet from the sanctuary (Section 2.9).

Religious use. Federal money cannot pay for a sanctuary or any room used as a principal place of worship (24 CFR 5.109, cited in the Metro block grant entry in Part A), and it can pay for a church-owned building only for its secular use. Lowe's, The Home Depot Foundation, U.S. Bank, PNC, Bank of America, State Farm, the James Graham Brown Foundation and the Kentucky Colonels each admit a church only when the funded space or program is open to everyone without a religious condition. Metro's own rule bars Neighborhood Development Fund money from capital improvements to any faith-based organization's property.

Age of organization. The Kentucky Colonels require five years of existence; The Home Depot Foundation requires one. A funder reading the 2025 IRS letter alone would fail the church on the first.

Level of significance. Save America's Treasures requires national significance or National Historic Landmark status; the school's listing is at the Jefferson County level (Section 4.3), so that program is closed for good and the report says so. The Action Fund and Preserving Black Churches require that the building be at least 50 years old; the school passes, and the sanctuary's date is not yet documented (Section 4.8, item U12).

How often. Eligibility errors are the most common reason a well-written application is declined without comment, and they are easy to make even for professionals. The strategy memo that started this research assumed Metro's Neighborhood Development Fund could pay for capital work on church property, and quoted an Action Fund ceiling of $500,000 that belongs to a different program; both were corrected by reading the rule at its source. A church that applies to a program it is ineligible for loses more than one application, because the same reviewers see the next one.

What passing looks like here. The recorded deed, pulled from the Jefferson County Clerk's deed index. A two-page community-use plan for the school that states, in the funder's own terms, that the building serves the whole public without regard to religion, with the programs named. A board-adopted non-discrimination policy. A one-paragraph organizational history with the 1833 date and the church's prior status as a tax-exempt church. The sanctuary's construction date with a source. And discipline about which door to knock on: the school goes to the school programs, the sanctuary goes to the church programs, and neither is argued into the other.

What fails. A named attachment is missing, or is not what the funder asked for. The attachments the top ten sources name are: proof of ownership; the IRS determination letter; a W-9 on the current form; current photographs; the National Register listing name and reference; a map or site plan; letters of consent from all owners of the property (the Kentucky African American Heritage Commission asks for this even when the applicant is the owner); a cost estimate or contractor quote; an architect's quote for planning grants; letters of support or commitment; a board list; financial statements; and, for federal applications, the forms generated inside Grants.gov. The Kentucky Colonels require a letter of intent before the portal will even open. Several funders ask for a Form 990, which a church does not file; the church must say so in writing rather than leave the field blank.

How often. Often enough that most funders' first screening step is a checklist. A file missing one attachment is marked incomplete and, at most programs, is not returned for correction; the applicant waits a year.

What passing looks like here. A single grant file, kept in one place, containing every item in Section 3.2 in its current version, so that any application can be assembled by copying from it. Today the church can produce the legal documents and the National Register and Fisk records in an afternoon. It cannot yet produce photographs, a condition statement, a cost estimate, or the deed. Those are the four attachments to build first.

What fails. The application asks for money to "renovate the school." Funders do not fund intentions; they fund a described piece of work with a price attached, prepared by someone qualified to price it. A conditions assessment is a professional's written survey of what is wrong with the building and what it will take to fix it. A scope of work is the list of the specific work to be done. A cost estimate prices that scope. For a National Register building, all three must be written to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards, which are the federal rules for repairing historic buildings so that their historic features are kept, and the person preparing them should have historic rehabilitation experience. The National Park Service, the Action Fund, the Kentucky Heritage Council, Lowe's, the Kentucky Colonels, Republic Bank and the Bruckheimer Fund all want a bounded, priced item. The Action Fund's rules exclude any expense incurred before the award, so the scope must also be work that has not started.

How often. This is the gate that separates "interested" from "fundable," and it is where most first-time building owners stall, usually for the understandable reason that they are waiting for a grant to pay for the assessment. The report is built around not letting that happen: the assessment is prerequisite five in Section 2.2, and the recommended sequence is planning first, capital second.

What passing looks like here. Two quotes for a conditions assessment in October, from an architect or contractor with historic rehabilitation experience; the assessment commissioned in November and delivered with a cost estimate by mid-January 2027; and the estimate broken into phases (for example, roof and envelope; windows and structure; interior and systems) so that each funder can be asked for one phase at a price its program allows. If the church cannot pay for the assessment itself this fall, the fallback is a Project Planning request to the Action Fund in February, which is a legitimate application with better odds than a capital request without an estimate (Section 2.8).

What fails. The applicant promises a match it has not secured, or accepts a grant it cannot float. Several sources in this report require match: the National Fund for Sacred Places requires a dollar-for-dollar cash match raised after acceptance, with a quarter of it in hand before the first payment; the Daughters of the American Revolution require dollar-for-dollar secured cash; Preservation Kentucky requires dollar-for-dollar cash; Kentucky Humanities requires dollar-for-dollar cash or in-kind; the Kentucky Heritage Council's Certified Local Government grant requires a 40 percent local share. Separately, many awards reimburse rather than pay in advance: the Kentucky Colonels require all purchases complete and receipts submitted by October 30 of the award year; federal and Metro awards reimburse after the church has paid; the Neighborhood Development Fund wants receipts and cancelled checks within 60 days. Federal construction money above $2,000 also brings prevailing-wage rules (Davis-Bacon), which raise the price of labor, and federal spending above $1,000,000 in a year triggers a single audit.

How often. Match failures show up after award, which is the worst time: the funder's staff ask for the match documentation before releasing money, and a "pledge" that was really a hope cannot be produced. Cash-flow failures are quieter and more damaging. A small organization wins a reimbursement grant, starts work, cannot pay the contractor while waiting for reimbursement, and either stops work or borrows against the building. The strategy memo flagged this as the failure most likely to hurt a church of this size, and the research has not seen the church's cash position.

What passing looks like here. Before any application is filed, the treasurer writes one number for the board: the amount the church can pay out and wait 90 days to get back. Every ask is sized to that number, or paired with a bridge (the Vital Sites loan fund in Part C exists for this). Match is documented, not described: written pledges for cash, and for in-kind, a letter from the donor stating the fair market value of materials or labor. Corporate in-kind commitments (Lowe's, Home Depot, GAF, paint) become match for foundation and federal asks only when that letter exists. One rule to remember: National Trust money cannot be used as match for another National Trust program.

What fails. The story cannot be checked, or the numbers cannot be proven. Reviewers of heritage applications read hundreds of "historic and beloved" buildings; what they trust is a specific claim with a source. This building's story has already been through that test in Section 4, and some of what circulates about it is wrong: the church did not buy the school in 1979 (private owners did), the school did not have six teachers (it was built to a six-teacher plan and ran with about three), and the architect was Oscar W. Holmes, not Moore Brothers. An application that repeats the wrong version, read by a reviewer who has the nomination open in another window, is a lost application. Outcome claims fail the same way. "The restored school will strengthen the community" cannot be scored. "The school will be open 20 hours a week and host a senior program on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a youth history program in summer, and an annual alumni reunion, all open to the public" can be, and it can be checked a year later.

How often. Constantly, and usually not fatally on its own, because a weak narrative lowers a score rather than eliminating a file. It becomes fatal in combination: a file with no assessment, no use plan, and a story built on legend reads as a hope, not a project, and hopes do not get funded at $150,000.

What passing looks like here. The narrative uses only the facts in Section 4, cites the National Register nomination and the Fisk card, and states the one claim that no other applicant can make: as far as can be determined, this is the only surviving elementary school built for Black students in Jefferson County outside the city of Louisville, one of three surviving Rosenwald schools of the seven the county built. The community-use plan supplies the outcomes as counts: hours open, programs, people served, and who will run them. The tone is stewardship, not rescue. The congregation that owns this building has kept it standing, and the application should say so plainly rather than describe the building only by its damage.

What fails. The budget and the narrative describe different projects, or the budget asks a funder for something its rules exclude. Every program in this report has rules about what its money may touch. The Action Fund excludes acquisition, new construction, and expenses before the award. The National Trust Preservation Funds pay for planning only, never bricks; the Bruckheimer Fund pays for bricks. The Kentucky Colonels exclude salaries, marketing, design fees, and improvements to leased property. Metro's Neighborhood Development Fund excludes indirect costs and sales tax. The National Endowment for the Humanities does not fund construction. The James Graham Brown Foundation's minimum grant is $150,000; the National Fund for Sacred Places caps planning at $20,000. A budget that asks a planning fund for a roof, or a bricks fund for a consultant, or that includes work already begun, fails on arithmetic before anyone reads the prose.

How often. In practice, budgets and narratives are written by different people and reconciled by no one, and reviewers are trained to check. The tell is a budget line that funds no described activity, or a described activity with no line.

What passing looks like here. One master cost estimate for the school, from the conditions assessment, broken into phases and line items. Each application takes a slice of it that matches that funder's allowable costs, and the narrative describes exactly that slice. No cost appears in two applications for the same dollars. Where two funders will pay for parts of the same phase, the budget shows each funder's share on separate lines. Someone other than the person who wrote the narrative reads the budget against it before filing.

What fails. The file is late, over length, in the wrong format, or submitted in the wrong place. Deadlines in this report carry times, not just dates: the Action Fund closed at 5 pm Eastern; Preserving Black Churches closed at 5 pm Eastern; the National Fund for Sacred Places closes at 11:59 pm Eastern. Louisville is on Eastern time, so the church shares a clock with these funders, but "5 pm" is not "end of day," and a portal that receives a file at 5:01 pm records it as late. Federal notices post with windows of about 30 days and the National Park Service's next round will likely be no different (Section 2.9); Grants.gov submissions also fail for technical reasons that take a day to fix, so a federal file submitted on deadline day is a gamble. Several portals require accounts that must be created and approved in advance: Foundant for the National Trust, the Sacred Places fund, Kentucky Humanities and the Kentucky Colonels; Euna Grants for Metro; SmartSimple for Humana.

How often. Late and non-compliant files are rejected without review at nearly every program that runs a formal round, and no one calls to warn the applicant. It is the least forgivable failure because it is entirely within the applicant's control.

What passing looks like here. One person owns the calendar in Section 2.7 and the accounts in Section 10.3, and every application is submitted at least two working days before its deadline. Each application is checked against the funder's own instructions, including page limits, file types, and naming rules, by someone who did not write it. Portal accounts are created in the fall, not in the week of a deadline.

The table lists every document the top ten sources in Section 2.8 will ask for, with what it must contain, who at the church produces it, how long it takes, and where the church stands today. "Have" means the church can produce it now; "Gap" means it does not exist yet. Roles are used rather than names so the board can assign them. Direct links to the standard forms and portals, where one exists, follow the table.

Where the standard forms are. Each link below was opened on September 18, 2026. Where a funder has no standard form, or its page refused access that day, the entry says so and points to the portal URL already cited in the funder's entry. Kentucky state government pages (heritage.ky.gov, homelandsecurity.ky.gov) were returning server errors at the time of this check; those links are carried from the entries in Parts A and B, where they were read earlier the same day.

Some documents unlock many applications; some unlock one. Produce them in the order that unlocks the most, and let the calendar in Section 2.7 set the dates. Everything below is doable by a volunteer board with no paid staff.

If the assessment slips past mid-January, the church still files with the Action Fund in February, as a Project Planning request rather than a capital request, and says why. That is a stronger application than a capital ask with a guessed number.

Once a file clears the gates, it goes to a review panel. At the programs that matter most here, the readers are preservation professionals scoring against the funder's published criteria, and they read many files in a short time. Five things decide the score for a building like this one, and each has a common way of losing points.

The significance story. The reviewer wants to know, in the first page, why this building and not another. The strongest version is specific and sourced: a brick Rosenwald school built in 1929 to 1930 when most were frame, on a six-teacher plan, designed by Oscar W. Holmes, with $200 raised by the Black community of Jeffersontown alongside the Rosenwald grant and public funds; the only surviving elementary school built for Black students in Jefferson County outside the city of Louisville, as far as the 1984 nomination could determine; one of three surviving Rosenwald schools of the seven the county built; individually listed on the National Register in 1985; closed at integration in 1961; now owned by a congregation organized in 1833 that worships two blocks away and has been on that site since 1877. Where files like this lose points: legend in place of record (the 1979 purchase, the six teachers), a name that shifts between "Alexander-Ingram" and "Jeffersontown Colored School" without explanation (use the National Register name once, then the local name, and say they are the same building), and significance asserted without the National Register reference number. The nomination is the reviewer's source; make it the church's.

The community-use case. Preservation funders no longer fund buildings to be kept; they fund buildings to be used, and both the Action Fund and the National Park Service weigh community benefit. The reviewer is looking for named programs, named partners, hours, and numbers, and for evidence that the community asked for this rather than being told about it. Where files lose points: "community center" with no programs named; a use plan that is really a wish; letters of support from organizations that will do nothing. Passing here is the two-page use plan with programs, a partner (the Greater Jeffersontown Historical Society, a school, a senior program) who has agreed in writing to run something in the building, and the city's resolution. The church's own history helps: a congregation that has been in the same neighborhood since 1877 is the kind of steward reviewers believe will still be there in twenty years.

The commitment to preservation standards. Every federal and National Trust dollar in this report requires work to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards, which in plain terms means repair rather than replace, keep what is original, and make new work compatible and reversible. The reviewer looks for three signals: that the applicant names the Standards, that the professional preparing the scope has done this kind of work before, and that the scope treats the building's defining features with care. For this school those features are named in the nomination: brick walls with limestone trim, the recessed arched entrances with limestone voussoirs, the large industrial-type windows (boarded since at least 1984), the buttress-like pilasters, and a flat roof with a parapet on three sides. Where files lose points: replacement windows where repair was possible, a shingle roof on a flat-roofed building (the roofing entry in Part C already flags this), the word "modernize," and no mention of the Section 106 review that federal money triggers. Passing is a scope that says what will be repaired, what will be replaced and why, and a board that has already voted to accept a preservation covenant if one is required.

The sustainability plan. The reviewer asks what happens to the building after the grant. Where files lose points, more than anywhere else in the narrative: "we will pursue additional grant funding." That is not a plan; it is a description of the applicant's current activity. Passing names a mechanism: a line in the church's annual operating budget for the school's utilities, insurance and maintenance; income from community use of the building; program funding from sources that pay for programs (Metro's Neighborhood Development Fund and External Agency Fund, the Humana Foundation, the Kentucky African American Heritage Commission, Kentucky Humanities), which is exactly what those sources in this report are good for; the Kentucky historic rehabilitation tax credit as an offset once the revised rules land; and a named person or committee responsible for the building. A small, believable number beats a large, hopeful one.

The photographs. Reviewers look at the pictures before they read the text, and they look at them again while scoring the scope. They want to see the whole building, the damage that justifies the ask, and the historic fabric that justifies preserving it, in the same set. Where files lose points: a few exterior shots, no interiors, no roof, nothing dated, and nothing that shows the problem the budget says it will fix. Passing is the set described in Section 3.2: all four elevations, the roof, every room, the basement, the systems, close-ups of the damage, each one labeled with the date and the location, plus one of the two Fisk University photographs of the building when it was new so the reviewer can see what it was.

One last point, because it is the one that undoes everything above. A reviewer who finds an eligibility stretch on page one reads the rest of the file looking for the next one (Section 2.9). The church's strongest position is the honest one: the school to the school programs, the sanctuary to the church programs, every claim traceable to a record, every number to an estimate, and every promise to a document in the grant file.

Every statement in this section traces to a primary or authoritative source (a government record, the National Register nomination form itself, the Fisk University Rosenwald Fund card itself, or the church's own publications), checked on September 18, 2026. Items that come from secondary sources are attributed. Items that could not be verified are listed at the end of this section as things the church must supply.

First Baptist Church of Jeffersontown (EIN 61-0730354) is a 501(c)(3) church at 10600 Watterson Trail in the City of Jeffersontown, Kentucky, inside Louisville Metro Council District 11. Organized in 1833 by Black Baptist members of Jeffersontown's Union Church, it has worshipped on its Watterson Trail site since 1877. The Rev. Brandle C. Morrow has been senior pastor since May 2023.

The church owns the former Jeffersontown Colored School at 10400 Shelby Street, a separate one-acre parcel about two blocks from the sanctuary. The school is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places (reference 85002448, listed March 29, 1985, as part of the Jefferson County Multiple Resource Area). It was built in 1929 to 1930 by the Jefferson County Board of Education with a $1,700 Julius Rosenwald Fund grant, $200 raised by the Black community, and $19,975 in public funds, on a six-teacher Rosenwald plan; Oscar W. Holmes was the architect and Moore Brothers the contractor. A brick Art Deco building, it served grades one through eight, averaging about 120 pupils with three teachers, until it closed in 1961 with integration. It was later known as the Alexander-Ingram School, after teachers Virginia B. Alexander and Annie C. Ingram. The 1984 nomination called it the only surviving elementary school built for Black students in Jefferson County outside the city of Louisville. It is one of three surviving Rosenwald school buildings of the seven built in Jefferson County. The building has no documented history of public preservation grants. The date the church acquired it, and its present condition, are not yet documented and must be supplied by the church.

These come from the City of Jeffersontown history page and Jeffersontown Magazine (Towne Post), not from the nomination or a government record. State them with attribution.

Every funding source is placed in one of three parts, according to what the funder is actually willing to pay for:

Where a source fits one bucket only conditionally (for example, the Preserving Black Churches program, which can fund the school only if it were on the same lot as the church), the source is written up in full in the bucket it fits best and cross-referenced in one line in the other.

Within each part, sources are grouped by category: federal; Kentucky state; Louisville Metro and local; national preservation funds; foundations; corporate.

Each source carries a fit score from 1 to 5, set when it was checked, with one sentence of reasoning. The scale:

Where a program was checked twice, from two directions, and scored differently, the entry shows both scores and the score adopted in Section 2, with the reasoning.

Every entry was verified at the funder's own website, the official government portal, or an official document (a Notice of Funding Opportunity, a Metro Action Plan, a foundation's IRS filing) on the date shown, which for this report is September 18, 2026 unless the entry says otherwise. Where the funder's page refused automated access on that day (a "403" or "blocked" note), the entry says so and gives the source actually read, usually the funder's own text as indexed by a search engine or a secondary listing that quotes the funder. Those entries should be confirmed by opening the funder's page in a browser before the church relies on them.

Twenty-five sources. These funders care about the historic school, the Rosenwald story, or African American heritage; none of them would fund the sanctuary. The church applies as the owner and steward of the building.

Cross-references from other parts. The National Trust's Preserving Black Churches program (Part B) can fund an auxiliary building only if it is on the same lot and within the property line of the church; the school is on a separate parcel about two blocks away, so it is written up in Part B with the conditional school score noted there. Louisville Metro's Community Development Block Grant (below, under Louisville Metro and local) could be read as "both" (the church can host secular programs in the school) or "school only"; either way the sanctuary is excluded by federal rule, so it sits here.

Three sources. These funders support congregations, historic houses of worship, or the security of faith-based facilities. The research found no Kentucky state, Louisville Metro, or foundation program that funds a church building as such; the Kentucky and Louisville foundations that were checked mostly exclude churches in writing (Section 11).

Also see in Part C. Several sources there can fund a secular program run by the church at either building, or a church facility improvement that is open to the public: the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Good Works Program (church facility improvements if services are open to all), Republic Bank, the LG&E and KU Foundation, the Humana Foundation (health programs for seniors, church eligible), Louisville Metro Council's Neighborhood Development Fund and External Agency Fund (programs only), the Bruckheimer Fund and Preservation Kentucky (if the sanctuary is a designated historic resource), and the Vital Sites loan fund. Lilly Endowment, which funds the two largest programs below, does not take direct requests for a single congregation's building; it is listed in Section 11.

Twenty-five sources. These funders will pay for either building, or for a combined campus project, usually because they fund "community facilities," "civic projects," or programs run by any local nonprofit. Most of them admit the church only when the funded space or program is open to the whole public without regard to religion, and several are programs-only (they will not pay for construction at either building). Each entry says which.

Cross-reference. Louisville Metro's Community Development Block Grant (Part A) can fund the school as a community center but never the sanctuary; it is written up in Part A.

All 53 sources from Parts A, B and C. Order: firm and expected dates soonest first (expected dates are inferred from the funder's past cycles and marked "expected"), then rolling sources, then sources whose next date is unknown or is simply "next cycle." Bucket: A = Rosenwald school building; B = church; C = both. Fit scores are as originally set, with the three adjustments made in Section 2.10 (Preserving Black Churches for the school, LG&E and KU Foundation, Humana Foundation) carried through.

This section gathers everything the research found that the church must have, do, decide, or ask before the sources above can be applied for. It is organized by whether the item blocks an application outright, is paperwork, is a document to assemble, is a call to make, or is a decision for the board. Items are drawn from the strategy memo's capacity analysis, the individual entries, and the fact-check.

Before any of these calls, open two pages in a browser. The Home Depot Foundation Community Impact Grants page (https://corporate.homedepot.com/page/community-impact-grants) and GAF's Community Contractor Program pages (https://www.gaf.com/en-us/for-pros/contractors/community-contractors and https://www.gaf.com/en-us/about-us/community) refused automated access on September 18, 2026, and again at the quality check the same day. The $5,000 gift-card figure, the "not solely for worship" rule, and the contractor-applies process in those two entries come from the companies' own text as reproduced elsewhere. Read both pages directly and note the date before relying on either entry.

Sixty programs checked and set aside, with the reason, so the church does not re-chase them. Twelve of them (marked "full entry in Appendix B") were written up in the full schema and are preserved in Appendix B. Two programs that the federal research listed as excluded, House Community Project Funding (direct application) and the National Park Service History of Equal Rights grant, remain as scored entries in Parts A and C because a workaround exists.

Every source was checked on 2026-09-18 unless a different date is shown. Pages that refused automated access on that day are marked; those should be opened in a browser before the church relies on the entry.

Kentucky Heritage Council site outage at the quality check. heritage.ky.gov returned errors (502 or 403) on every attempt during the quality check on 2026-09-18, including the Kentucky African American Heritage Commission page, the CLG grant page, both CLG contact-list PDFs, and the tax credit overview. Those pages were read earlier the same day, before the outage, and the entries are consistent with what was read then. Before relying on the KAAHC deadline sentence, the CLG list, or the tax credit status, reopen those pages.

Two 990-PF filings the church should open in a browser. ProPublica's filing download links returned a bot-challenge page rather than the document. To cite one capital grant from the James Graham Brown Foundation, open the 2023 Form 990-PF (Part XV, grants paid): https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/download-filing?path=IRS%2F610724060_202312_990PF_2024122022965015.pdf (the 2024 filing is listed on ProPublica as 202523149349102602). For the Stock Yards Bank Foundation, the 2022 filing path is download990pdf_12_2023_prefixes_58-62/611380342_202212_990PF_2023121922140779.pdf.

Primary and authoritative:

Secondary:

Blocked to automated fetch on 2026-09-18 (open in a browser to confirm): IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search https://apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ (403); louisvilleky.gov district pages https://louisvilleky.gov/government/metro-council-district-11 (Cloudflare); hmdb.org (403); NPGallery photo asset a01a868d-f49a-4389-a094-980f422c7111 (504).

These twelve programs were scored 1 (ineligible or discontinued) but were written up in full during the research. They are preserved here so the church has the complete record of what was checked and why.