Local organizations give back $1.8M in 2011

It began a little over a year ago at a lunch meeting, when the four largest grant makers in the community decided to create a common grant application. “Our community is a fairly small one,” explained Christiana Shields, director of nonprofit services for the Community Foundation. “Many of our local nonprofits apply for funding from more than agency. In the past, each of the four funders had separate requirements and guidelines. Applying for grant funding is already a challenging task, and we wanted to make the process easier.”

A few months and many collaborative edits later – the task was done. In 2011, for the first time, a common grant application was available for all nonprofit organizations that wanted to apply for funding from the Community Foundation, United Way, Augusta Health Foundation, and CAPSAW.

The group continued to meet and collaborate, and when the competitive community grant process was finished for the year, they were delighted to discover they had distributed almost $1 million dollars in funding.

Then, they realized an even larger truth. “If we include our internal programs, like the United Way’s Dolly Parton Imagination Library and Stuff the Bus, our numbers are even greater,” noted Cynthia Pritchard, Executive Director for the United Way of Greater Augusta.

The funders realized that when they took into account all their gift programs, in 2011:

• Augusta Health Foundation distributed $230,000
• CAPSAW contributed almost $200,000
• United Way gave close to $650,000

The Community Foundation, when including awards, scholarships, and designated funds, distributed about $800,000

“It’s a pretty amazing total,” Anna Leavitt, CAPSAW Coordinator observed, “$1.8 million can impact a lot of lives.”

The common grant application for 2012 is due to be released in the next few weeks, and the four foundations continue to work together. Enhanced collaboration is the focus of the future for funders and nonprofits alike.

“All of us want to impact lives, solve problems, and improve futures,” says Becky Kohler, CEO of the Community Foundation.  “We are more determined than ever to bring our community partners together to find innovative and effective solutions to some of our most challenging issues.”