Community Foundation shares emergency response fund data with community

||| FROM HILARY CANTY for COMMUNITY FOUNDATION |||

Attached please find a spreadsheet of the grants made from the Community Emergency Response fund.  The Fund was established in March with a focus to gather the resources needed to address the impact of Covid and the subsequent economic crisis on our most vulnerable neighbors.

The Community Foundation invited a team of leaders to serve as the CER Fund advisors.  The team is Berto Gandera, Brian Moss, Lisa Byers, Erin O’Dell, Judy Scott, Susan Singleton, and myself, with Kevin Ranker serving as development officer. This committee reviews requests and votes on distributions.

Our initial goal was to raise the resources needed to support the remarkable and immediate increase in need that our social safety net providers experienced at the start and continue to experience now.  We were able to tell them to focus on their services and assure them that the additional resources would be available.  We had hoped that when the CARES funding reached SJ Co, funds would be available to subsidize these essential services.  Unfortunately, that was not the case and these services continue to rely on philanthropy for a great majority of their operation expenses.

Another goal was to keep the grant funds circulating locally.  For example, when we wanted to build portable shower units for the Shelter clients, the parts were purchased from Island Hardware.  Another example is the CCC project, which is providing 10 students training and a stipend with a promise of ongoing employment upon completion.

OICF hosts a community check in call every other week to learn what needs are and to help the nonprofits coordinate their efforts.

We have so far received $193,000 in matching funds from the All In WA program through the Seattle Foundation.  We will be submitting an additional $700,000 request which we anticipate will be fully matched as well.  This will be used to help continue the support through the new year.

OICF has facilitated these efforts without fees.  100% of the dollars donated go to help this community.

I am deeply grateful for the Board members, staff,volunteers, and donors of all of our nonprofits who have stepped up and made this response possible.  It has truly been an exceptional response that has been life changing for so many.

Here’s to a better year ahead.