Brand and Communications  Guide for Grantees

We understand that time is one of the most valuable resources for our grantees. To help you make the most of it, this page provides quick access to essential grantee information, including our brand and communication guidelines.

About This Guide

We encourage our grantee partners to communicate externally about awarded grants, including in press releases, social media posts or other external communications.  Below you will find guidelines for how to communicate about your grant, including use  of our logo and name, as well as recommendations for how we can help amplify your  work and our partnership.

If you have any questions about these guidelines, please contact:

[email protected]

Communicating About Your Grant

Following full execution of the grant agreement, you may communicate publicly about your grant. All publicity materials featuring the Hilton Foundation’s name or logo (press releases, email campaigns, advertising, social media messages or other communications campaigns) must be approved by the Foundation’s Communications team before publishing or posting.

Use of the Conrad N.  Hilton Foundation Name

To utilize the Hilton Foundation’s name in writing within materials, we ask that you use our full name: Conrad N. Hilton Foundation on first use. On subsequent uses, you may use the Hilton Foundation.

Note “the” is not part of our full name and, therefore, should be in lower case if it appears at all, and we do not use acronyms.

The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is a private family foundation, and not connected to Hilton Hotels. Therefore, in an effort to avoid brand confusion, please do not refer to the Foundation simply as “Hilton.”

Use of the Conrad N.  Hilton Foundation Logo

When using the Hilton Foundation Logo, please refer to the following Brand Guide. Please ensure the placement of the logo meets our branding requirements. The logo is available in both full color and single color, in horizontal and vertical orientations.

Hilton Foundation Brand Guide and Logo

Issuing a Press Release

We are proud of the work and accomplishments of our grantee partners, and encourage you to share news about your grant with media and other stakeholders.

The Hilton Foundation issues a quarterly release announcing all board-approved grants. We are not able to draft or issue press releases in collaboration with or on behalf of grantee partners for individual grants. We do not publish press releases issued by grantee partners on our website.

Quotes from the president and CEO or other Foundation leaders may be available. In cases where a quote from the CEO is not available, quotes may be attributed to a senior program officer or program officer. You are welcome to draft a quote for the Foundation to review and determine attribution.

For quote requests, we ask for 5 business days to allow for internal approval process.

We encourage you to share news about your grant utilizing language that highlights the accomplishments of your organization and lists the Foundation as supporters to help accomplish your vision and goals.

We ask that you use language that accurately reflects the organization issuing the press release, and please include a hyperlink to the Hilton Foundation’s website or social media channels when appropriate.

The preferred writing style of the Hilton Foundation is the Associated Press Stylebook.
Please use the following text for a condensed description of our work in printed or digital materials, including press releases.

International hotelier Conrad N. Hilton established the grantmaking foundation that bears his name in 1944 to help people living in poverty and experiencing disadvantage worldwide. Today, the work continues, concentrating on efforts to ensure healthy early childhood development and sustainable livelihoods for youth and refugee populations, support young people transitioning out of foster care, improve access to housing and support services for people experiencing homelessness, identify solutions to safe water access, and lift the work of Catholic sisters. Additionally, following selection by an independent, international jury, the Foundation annually awards the $2.5 million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize to an organization doing extraordinary work to reduce human suffering. The Foundation is one of the world’s largest, with approximately $7 billion in assets. It has awarded grants to date totaling more than $3.2 billion worldwide, and $290 million in 2023. Please visit www.hiltonfoundation.org for more information.
Any media outreach whether proactive or reactive that mentions the Foundation should be conducted in coordination with the Hilton Foundation Communications team.

Please reach out to the Communications team before pitching Hilton Foundation spokespersons for media interviews or engagements.

Social Media

The Hilton Foundation is committed to spotlighting the work of our grantee partners. We encourage you to follow us on our social media channels (see list below), and feel free to tag us when you mention the Hilton Foundation. We will most likely retweet or re-post your social media posts on our own channels.

The Hilton Foundation will cross promote, share, retweet and engage with online content from our grantee partners including social media posts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and blog posts and websites from current and past grantee partners, Hilton Humanitarian Prize Laureates and philanthropic partners.

The Foundation upholds the right to refrain from engaging with online content that violates our online policy at our discretion. To ensure the Foundation can support and engage with your content online, please abide by the following social media guidelines when naming, tagging and referring to the Foundation.

- Be on-topic, relevant and representative of the Foundation’s mission and vision.
- Be kind and respectful. We have a responsibility to create a conscientious and inclusive community and will not engage with content that implies threats of harassment,  violence or bullying.
- Not contain spam, be defamatory of any person, deceive others, be obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, hateful, inflammatory, or promote sexually explicit material or violence.
- Not contain “Hate speech,” which is defined as speech, or the endorsement or promotion of speech, that is derogatory toward a group of people based on a protected classification. For example, speech that dehumanizes, ridicules, condones or promotes violence against a protected class of people based on race, color, religion, age, sex, gender, etc.
- Be free of any advertising, promotions or fundraising of any services, goods or causes of any kind. Please do not use the Foundation’s name and logo in connection with the sale of a commercial product to prevent the perception of endorsement or commerce associated with the Foundation.
- Refrain from engaging in political campaigning (or funding), lobbying activities or voter registration drives (with exceptions). In order to maintain tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code, the Foundation is prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any ballot measures, bills or candidates for elected public office.
- Not violate trademark, copyright or publicity rights. Please do not post images or other content without the consent of those who own or appear in the media. When you quote others, be sure to credit them and, if appropriate, add a link.
- Not violating Hilton Foundation policies against harassment, discrimination and disclosure of confidential information.
- Cannot breach any of the terms of any of the social media platforms themselves.

If you have any questions about these guidelines, please contact:

[email protected]

Grant FAQs

Find answers to the most common questions and learn more about the Hilton Foundation’s grantmaking strategy.

The Hilton Foundation is a strategic grantmaking organization. We initiate and develop long-term projects and partnerships to help us deliver maximum impact. We do not accept unsolicited proposals, with the exception of our  Good Neighbor Program, which accepts proposals for small-scale grants to nonprofit organizations with IRS 501(c)(3) status doing important work in our local Conejo Valley community.
We do not make grants to individuals.
The majority of our funding is devoted to our seven key initiatives: Foster Youth, Refugees, Catholic Sisters, Safe Water, Global Early Childhood Development, Homelessness, and Opportunity Youth. Through the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize and Good Neighbour Program we also extend our support to pioneering nonprofits and local organizations dedicated to alleviating human suffering.
To date, we have awarded grants totaling more than $3.2 billion.
You can look back over several years’ worth of our grantmaking starting with our most recently completed year here, as well as our current year-to-date awarding of grants. Additionally, the Foundation annually awards the $2.5 million Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize to an organization doing extraordinary work to alleviate human suffering.
All of our grantee partner organizations are working to improve the human condition around the globe, however the Hilton Humanitarian Prize is operated separately from the rest of our program activities. Prize nominees are submitted through open nominations and are not required to be connected to or aligned with our program areas. Following a rigorous vetting process, an independent international jury makes the final selection of the Prize recipient. There have been some instances where recipients of the Prize are also grantee partners working alongside our program initiatives. Learn more about Prize nominations or see our dedicated FAQs for more information.
We may choose to work with any congregation to advance the work of Catholic sisters globally.
The Catholic Sisters Initiative Seeks to bolster sisters’ formation and education while strengthening their partnerships with the Church, key networks, and other entities. The initiative supports the sisters’ efforts to foster human development and support children, youth, and families living in disadvantaged conditions on their pathways to self-sufficiency.

Established in 1986 with funding from the Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Fund for Sisters is a separate entity with its own staff, governance structure, and funding guidelines. The Fund for Sisters provides small grants (typically $10,000) to women religious throughout the world to support their direct-service ministries and to build the capacity of leadership conferences of women religious in the developing world.
While the Foundation supports many Catholic organizations and institutions, our giving is not restricted to specific denominations or faith groups.
Yes, our Good Neighbor Program offers grants to local nonprofit organizations with IRS 501(c)(3) status or Title 1 schools providing direct services near and around our offices in Westlake Village, California. The program’s geographic focus area comprises the Conejo Valley, extending northwest to Camarillo, Oxnard and Ventura—specifically, the communities of Agoura Hills, Newbury Park, Oak Park, Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village. The majority of grants are allocated for general operating support with a fixed award amount of $10,000, with funding for schools limited to $5,000 for a project or program
Rooted in the life interests and last will of our founder, Conrad N. Hilton, the Foundation pursues approaches and partnerships that touch a diversity of people, places, and needs. To ensure each of our initiatives continues to give voice to pressing issues and achieves measurable impact, the board of directors reviews and updates the Foundation’s program areas periodically. Our current program strategies will guide our work through 2025.

Purposeful Partnerships, Powerful Outcomes

Our Grantmaking  in 2023

Our Grants