SVCF accepts first round of grant applications
In its first ever grant cycle Solomon Valley Community Foundation utilized their Community Impact Fund; an unrestricted community grant fund supported through donations from the Founding Donors and other members of the community. During this first grant cycle, SVCF had approximately $3,200 to give and over $18,000 in requests. Fast forward almost 14 years later, SVCF’s Community Impact Fund has grown to over $1 million and generates approximately $30,000 annually in spendable revenue. Each and every year, in large part due to successful Match Month campaigns, the unrestricted Community Impact Fund continues to grow.
The first grantees to receive funding from Solomon Valley Community Foundation included:
- $825- Heart Choices, for the purchase of pregnancy & parenting education technology & curriculum
- $1,000- Mitchell County Partnership for Children, to support expansion of the Early Learning Center
- $500- Cawker City Hesperian Historical Society, to support the Cawker City Archive Preservation project
- $850- Port Library, for Community Room improvements
The Foundation also partnered with Great Plains Manufacturing, Inc. to fund two requests from the Tipton area which included:
- $1,800- Tipton Christian School Inc., to provide a technology grant
- $1,255- Tipton Heritage Association, to support museum building repair
By 2015, knowledge of the Foundation began to grow and was greatly enhanced when the Dane G. Hansen Foundation initiated a program to fund worthy projects in the counties of Northwest Kansas, by utilizing local community foundations in each county as a vehicle to award grants.
Initial funding from Dane G. Hansen Foundation began at the level of $50,000 per year per county. In the program’s first year, SVCF accepted 38 grant applications from Mitchell County charitable organizations, and the Board was able to award 25 grants with a total of over $56,000 from combined funds.
