The Green River Area Community Foundation (GRACF) is accepting grant applications from Daviess County nonprofits. Capacity Building Grants may be requested in amounts of up to $10,000.
“Last year, we received so many quality applications, but we were unable to fund them all. We wanted to offer the opportunity to local nonprofits again,” stated Greg Longtine, GRACF Grantmaking Committee Chair. “We feel the grants have been successful in meeting some of our local nonprofits’ needs, and we want to reach more organizations.”
This year, more funds are available to grant, due to the financial support of The Marilyn & William Young Charitable Foundation. Recipients of the 2018 Capacity Building Grants will not be eligible for this coming year’s grants.
The donation from The Marilyn & William Young Foundation is extremely encouraging. It validates the work of our Grantmaking Committee,” said Amy Silvert, GRACF Executive Director. “I think they agreed with the focus of the grants, saw the level of care that went into the selection process, heard about the many unmet needs, and decided it was something they wanted to support.”
The Grantmaking Committee of GRACF believes making this investment can lead to more effective nonprofit programs and thus greater community impact. They see these grants as an effort to improve the efficiency or effectiveness of an organization for long-term results, not as a temporary fix to an agency’s funding shortfalls.
The committee envisions the most successful capacity building projects will address issues that affect the organization as a whole; come at a strategic moment for the organization, such as a transition in leadership, a period of rapid growth or expansion, or significant change in a program or income stream; or are focused on a single problem or issue, rather than a patchwork of unrelated problems or needs.
For example, capacity building funds might be utilized for planning or assessment needs, technology to improve the organization’s overall operations, professional development to advance the nonprofit’s potential, or possibly even to bring about strategic mergers or collaborations between agencies.
2018 Capacity Building Grant recipients were Girls, Inc. of Owensboro-Daviess County, Hospice of Western Kentucky, and St. Joseph’s Peace Mission for Children. All three have reported great progress in their projects.
One of Hospice’s project objectives was to train, educate, and develop the clinical staff’s knowledge needed as experts in the field of Palliative Care. They reported being able to quickly expand their clinical staff’s knowledge in the field of Palliative Care. In the first quarter of 2018, seven representatives from Hospice were able to attend a formal CAPC Palliative Care Leadership Program, which included three days of training. Also, due to the funding of this grant, weekly educational support has been ongoing, which has been utilized by both their RN’s and Nurse Practitioners. Two members are now officially certified as set out in their original objective, with two additional team members studying currently, and scheduled to test before the end of the year.
The online grant application process is open only to nonprofits in Daviess County since this grant program utilizes monies from endowments created for Owensboro-Daviess County. GRACF began in 1993 as the Community Foundation of Owensboro-Daviess County. Since that time, the foundation grew to a regional focus and has been renamed the Green River Area Community Foundation.
The GRACF Advisory Board has made steps this past year to fund future grants to address community needs in their additional counties: Hancock, McLean, Ohio, Union, and Webster. The Green River Area Community Foundation is an affiliate foundation of the Community Foundation of Louisville (CFL). CFL has been offering Capacity Building Grants for several years with excellent outcomes.
The grant application can be completed and submitted online at https://www.grantinterface.com/Home/Logon?urlkey=cflouisville by the November 2 deadline.
Silvert, Executive Director of GRACF, will host an information session for applicants on Tuesday, October 2, following a 9 a.m. presentation of “Fundraising 101 for Nonprofits” by Anne McKune, Director of Philanthropy at CFL.
