CAMDEN — The Ouachita Valley Community Foundation is currently accepting applications for its annual disbursement of Giving Tree Grants.
According to Arkansas Community Foundation’s website, “Giving Tree grants are place-based, meaning that your organization must serve one of the areas where we’re currently making grants. Please note that if you’re applying for funding on behalf of a regional or statewide organization, your proposal is more likely to be successful if you can demonstrate that the project will be based in or have a direct impact on the county where you’re applying.”
“Any 501c3 public charity, school, hospital or government agency serving the counties where we’re making grants is eligible to apply.”
Rajveer Kang, Executive Director of the Ouachita Valley Community Foundation said, ” If you work in the non-profit word in Camden you might already know who the Ouachita Valley Community Foundation is, but if you’re new or if you don’t know who we are, a little bit of background on us: We were started by some very generous folks in our area by giving donations towards setting up endowments locally.”
The deadline for applications is August 15.
Kang said these endowments have grown, allowing the foundation to give out more money each year. Kang said the Giving Tree Fund is a “collective community fund” that gives grants from donations, be it $10 or $2,000.
“We’ve changed it a little bit this year, where there are two options, either you can do capacity building grants, which is basically you need help in operating your nonprofit better…or you can do a new project or an existing project that you want to keep going. So you can apply through those two avenues,” Kang said.
Some examples of capacity building are :
• Purchasing or upgrading equipment for staff use (computers, a financial database, security system)
• Upgrading your facility in ways that will allow you to serve more clients (buying a new refrigerator for a food pantry, replacing recalled cribs in an early childhood education facility)
• Providing training for staff, board or volunteers
• Hiring a consultant to help your organization develop a strategic plan or fundraising plan
• Communications/marketing consulting or start-up assistance, including help with branding, developing a social media presence, promotional materials, e-news campaign or other outreach strategy
• Developing an evaluation system to track the effectiveness of your program
• Organizing shared services with other nonprofit organizations, such as shared IT support, back-office admin support, financial services, etc.
Examples of project support are:
• Providing food to a larger number of food pantry clients
• Establishing a book mobile to bring library books to low-income neighborhoods
• Offering dental screenings through school-based health centers
• Creating a new exhibit at a museum
• Matching students with adult mentors
• Providing care and case management for victims of domestic violence
• Adding tutoring services to your after-school program
Each request is considered on its own merit. However, the following types of requests generally are not considered:
• Support for annual fundraising campaigns
• Support for capital campaigns
• Projects that address sectarian religious purposes
• Projects that are political in nature or have a political bias
• Multi-year proposals
• Scholarships or fellowships for formal education at any level
• Funding for salaries
In addition to the Giving Tree Grants, the foundation is also offering grants to programs that are promoting reading to children age o-8
Kang said, “If you are in the education sector you are aware that a lot of our kids are not reading at their grade level by the time they reach third grade. This is crucial, because the data does not bode well for those students who are not learning at that level because at that time they need to be reading to learn versus learning to read.”
Kang said this is a matched grant with the Arkansas Community Foundation paying up to $2,5oo, making the total grant dollars available for a program $5,000.
And while the Giving Tree Grants are given out once a year, Kang said the foundation is available to help non profits year round, either through grant writing workshops or other assistance.
“Through that process of being able to grant throughout the year we were able to grant the Child Enrichment Centers’ ABC Program. As we went on our site visit there we notice one of the air conditioners was really loud in one of the classrooms and the teachers were having to yell over it in order to communicate with the children, so it was a really disruptive environment for learning. So we looked into it for ABC, and the board thought it over and thought about if this was something they would like to grant to. And it being specifically that age and them being operational during the summer, they felt it was really important for us to help provide a comfortable environment for those kids. So, we were able to grant towards that and fund the repairs of that air conditioner,” Kang said.
Interested parties can apply at www.arcf.org/givingtree or apply via the arcf.org website. Kang can be reached at [email protected].