It’s a grant designed for residents; easy to read, easy to understand and eager to put down anywhere from 500 to 5,000 dollars on your good ideas for your community WITHOUT being a registered 501 (c)(3)!
August is just around the corner, ladies and gentlemen, so brace yourselves. Its Neighborhood Connections season.
How does it work?
Through The Cleveland Foundation, Neighborhood Connections funds community-building services and projects that build up, connect and promote community involvement. Their goals are simple but very powerful:
1. Stimulate and support projects designed and implemented by grassroots community groups that address neighborhood issues – Neighborhood Connections grants are intended to support the work of informal and formal groups formed by everyday people out of their mutual self-interest. We are looking for ideas that originate with a group of people from a neighborhood and that are being moved into action as a project, event, or activity. The intent is to support residents as active citizens. Grants are not intended to be used as start up funds to create more non-profits, to support established non-profits, or to develop more social service programs.
2. Encourage new and stronger relationships between residents of the community, among grassroots groups, and between grassroots groups and more established organizations – Neighborhood Connections believes building relationships is key to transforming neighborhoods. Projects must have the potential to build and strengthen positive relationships inside the neighborhood.
3. Support opportunities to develop community leadership, organizational capacity and build community capacity – Neighborhood Connections grants are intended to help support community members to develop their leadership skills and to make clear the possibilities for what they can do when they come together.
If this grant interests you, please download a copy of it and start looking it over. Neighborhood Connection workshops to explain the grant are coming soon and I’ll be adding my own experiences with filling out this proposal for my church and my community development organization.
