CommunityCare Foundation Sets New Funding Initiatives
by January 5, 2004 12:00 am 54 views
The CommunityCare Foundation Inc. is focusing its funding on specific areas of concern and changing the way it awards grants to area nonprofit agencies to reflect that focus. Fewer agencies will get funding from the foundation, but the ones that do will get more long term.
Walter Turnbow, chairman of the board of directors, said CCF’s focus for the first three years was “intentionally very wide.” It has awarded $15.2 million in grants to 135 agencies since it was formed in 1998 from proceeds of the sale of Northwest Health System. Federal law required the profits of the sale of the nonprofit hospital go to charity.
“The broad focus allowed the board of directors to learn about the many needs in Benton and Washington counties and provided an opportunity to see the impact that grant dollars could have,” Turnbow said. “This led to a desire to choose a few topics to work on in great depth and to measure the results of our efforts over a period of years.”
Suzanne Ward, CCF’s executive director, said the four initiatives chosen — education, health, immigration and nonprofit capacity building — are really all about education.
“We really want to take a few agencies and try to move them forward,” Ward said.
Agencies the board supports within the planned initiatives have been asked to submit proposals on funding they need. Grants awarded during 2004 will be renewed annually for four more years.
The five-year commitments will promote long-term planning for agencies and enable CCF to work more closely with the grantees to help them meet goals and evaluate their success, Ward said.
“In ten years, we will be able to say ‘look what happened because of what we did.’ It will be really measurable,” Ward said.
Ward said that in the past so many grants went to so many different agencies that it was hard to measure CommunityCare’s affectiveness.
Proposals for grants are due in January from the agencies that were asked to participate. Ward said grants for health-initiative funding will likely be awarded in January, with other funding initiatives staggered throughout the year.