Small Grants Can Make a Big Difference

Valley United Way currently has two small grants programs that will be awarding granrts during the first quarter of 2010. The first is the Spencial Needs Grants Program, and the second is the Youth Leadership Grants Program. Let me start by describing the smaller, but older program - the Youth Leadership Grants Program.

The Youth Leadership Grants Program was started way back in 1990 when the Youth Leadership Program was started. As part of the training for the students, we wanted to show them the importance of funding programs in the community, but also to impress on them the responsibility that goes with giving away money - and just how difficult it is to do so! The students first conduct their own needs assessment to determine the issues that they deem important to their peers. This becomes the focus for their grant making. They have currently posted their guidelines along with an on-line application form, and any group which has a program related to their priority areas may apply by January 22.

Once the applications are received, the students will then review the applications and may even visit with the applicants before they spend a weekend at Camp Jewell (Where they started their program last year!) reviewing the applications as a group and making their final funding decisions. Invariably, they will be asked for much more money than the $2,000 they have to give out. They will then have to make the hard decisions of choosing from many worth while programs for the dollars that they have available. Though it will be difficult, we have found that they have always done an excellent job. In fact, they do such a good job, that we ask two of them to serve on United Way's own Allocations Committee later in the year when United Way does its own allocations.

The Special Needs Grants Program is a result of the growth of desingated donor giving over the last several year. Some of our donors choose to direct their giving into speccific needs areas such as elder, homeless, hunger or youth issues among others. Those dollars are not part of the regular undesignated allocations pool  and they must be used only for the areas designated by the donors. As a result, we created the Special Needs Grants Program several years ago separate fromthe regular Allocations Process.

Under the Special Needs Grants Program, agencies may apply for funding for items not covered through their normal budgets. Funds can be used to cover special emergencies, or new and emerging issues and programs. The dollars vary widely by issue, but many times they are enough to fill these special needs identifited by agencies within pargameters established by donors.

The application process for this program is done entirely on-line through our eCimpact web based software. Agencies have until January 22 to submit their applications which will then be reviewed by the Allocations Committee. They will then make their recommendations to the full Board of Directors for a final decision. We have approximately $35,000 available for this program this year.

You can watch for the funding decisions some time in March.

For more information about Valley United Way, visit our website at www.valleyunitedway.org.