A new flexible grant program from the United Way Guelph Wellington Dufferin is providing more than $100,000 to local community organizations.
The Community Action Grants funding stream was created under the United Way’s revised Community Impact Strategy to allow the organization to act on emerging and emergency needs.
“Typically, our resources are tied up in multi-year funding commitments, which doesn’t allow for us to be as fluid and responsive to emerging community issues as we’d like to be,” said Glenna Banda, local United Way executive director, in a news release.
While the organization recognizes the stability its community partners gain from multi-year funding arrangements, the Community Action Grants were created to allow more flexibility, the release said.
“We are committed to providing that ongoing core funding, however, the Community Action Grants provided us an opportunity to assist organizations who needed a smaller amount of funding dollars to roll out a project or were looking for funding to address emerging issues happening right now in our community,” said Banda.
Some examples of organization benefiting from the new grants include the Guelph Public Library, which received funding to purchase additional loanable Wi-Fi hotspots to reduce the digital divide in the community, and the Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy, which will use the funding to make harm-reduction supplies more accessible in Wellington County.
Other grant recipients include the Seed, Shelldale Family Gateway, Child Witness Centre, Action Read Community Literacy Centre, Centre Wellington Food Bank, Church of the Apostles – Helper Bees, Fanjoy Cooking Up Change, Guelph Black Heritage Society, Learning Disabilities Association of Wellington County, PIN – the People and Information Network, Rainbow Programs for Children.
“We are taking action on a radical recovery and are committed to focusing our resources on the most pressing and critical issues our community is facing right now,” United Way director of community engagement and impact Colleen Murdoch said in the release.
“The Community Action Grants give us another opportunity to work with community partners to ensure everyone has an opportunity to thrive.”
Donations to United Way are accepted year round online at unitedwayguelph.com or by calling the United Way office at 519-821-0571.
Comments are closed.