Supervisors select six agencies to receive help
For the first time, San Benito County paired with the Community
Foundation of San Benito County to review applications for
nonprofit funding for local groups.
Supervisors select six agencies to receive help
For the first time, San Benito County paired with the Community Foundation of San Benito County to review applications for nonprofit funding for local groups.
At the board of supervisors meeting Tuesday, supervisors approved the findings presented by the foundation and awarded $82,102 to six different area nonprofits on a list of 84 applicants. The total allocation was about the same as previous years, an administration official said.
While the foundation already had awarded around $360,000 from funding sources outside the county to 49 nonprofit projects, County Administrative Officer Susan Thompson said involving the organization for the county’s annual allocation is a way to “leverage” funds for nonprofits.
“They have been looking at not only the use of county dollars but the use of other foundation funds, funds from outside foundations as well as local dollars,” Thompson said. “The beauty of this has been, that allocations committee has done their work so that they were looking at all the funding streams they had available and trying to coordinate those funds, leverage those dollars in such a way that we were ensuring that high-priority projects did get funded in this community.”
The nonprofits that were awarded county funds include $5,000 for Advocacy, Inc.; $25,000 for the Area Agency on Aging; $3,126 for the Community Food Bank of San Benito County; $5,476 for Foster Grandparents; $40,000 for Jovenes de Antano; and $3,500 for Senior Citizens Legal Services.
Along with going through the applications for these funds, the Community Foundation also had to consider a total of 98 projects to fund with money from the Packard Foundation and the United Way of Silicon Valley. In having $363,000 to give out, Gary Byrne, executive director for the foundation, said he knew there were going to be significantly more applications for the funding. In total, the foundation received 98 letters from area nonprofits saying they would apply for the funds.
“The process itself took about four months and was a great learning experience for us,” Byrne said.
To process all the applications, the foundation created five groups – health and human services, arts and culture, agriculture and the environment, community enhancement and education and youth – to break things down to similar projects.
Not all projects on the list got the requested funding. While it has in the past and “hopes” to receive it again, the Emmaus House did not receive any funding from the grants. Interim Executive Director Lisa Faulkner said she appreciates the collaboration with the county, the Community Foundation and Byrne, even though Emmaus House wasn’t going to be receiving money.
“Just the fact that there is a combined effort and that there is a go-to person in town makes it really nice for a nonprofit, and I can say this as a loser not on this list.”
