COMMUNITY GRANTS
Each year Western Colorado Community Foundation selects a new theme for their ‘community grants’ and awards $100,000 in funding to several nonprofits throughout our seven-county region.
This year the Community Grants theme is Dreaming Forward. Western Colorado Community Foundation will award large grants across our region to 4 or 5 nonprofits working in our leadership areas to help nonprofits Dream Forward. Grants will be for capacity building and or growth/expansion, not easily available through traditional funding avenues. Funding will support nonprofits to improve competencies, develop strategic plans, invest in systems or structures to improve organizational effectivness and/or projects that help the organization grow its impact to accomplish its goals and mission.
This year, WCCF staff will identify organizations within focus areas to invite to apply. We’ll announce grant recipients in August.
Our 2021 Community Grants focused on helping students recover academic skills and build resilience as they struggled with increased anxiety and other mental health issues worsened by the disruption and isolation of the pandemic. We awarded $110,000 in Community Grants to programs supporting Recovery and Resilience for Youth.
Youth Outside! was a rally cry and the grantmaking theme for our 2020 competitive grants program. We funded outdoor recreation projects as an antidote to the negative impacts of disrupted school learning and cancelled extracurricular activities. Supporting these programs was extremely important for the mental and physical well-being of our youth.
In 2019 our discretionary funds supported environment projects, including several food waste, composting, and recycling initiatives. $100,000 was distributed to 15 organizations working on these issues.
In 2018, $100,000 in grant funding was awarded to 18 organizations to help them expand programs to alleviate hunger for our most vulnerable citizens in communities across western Colorado.
