Project to help groups apply for United Way grants
A new $10,000 pilot project announced Tuesday between the City of Lethbridge’s Family and Community Support Services (FCSS), Social Housing in Action (SHIA) and the United Way of Lethbridge and South Western Alberta could help up to 30 registered non-profit organizations in the community become better grant writers.
“The partnership is meant to build capacity within our non-profit community with respect to grant writing,” said Amanda Jensen, Community Support Services coordinator with the City of Lethbridge. “We have recognized there can be a great disparity between which organizations receive grants.
“Sometimes the organization which has the best grant writer or has the capacity to hire a grant writer is the most successful in receiving grant dollars, not necessarily the best organization which can provide support services within our community.”
The idea behind the grant writing program is to offer capacity building, not direct support, said Jensen.
“We are not offering an opportunity to have a grant written for them,” she stressed. “We would rather like to build up that grantwriting capacity. So what we are offering is non-profit organizations to spend up to three hours with somebody who is proficient at writing grants to review their work, to help them assess it, and ultimately become better at writing grants themselves.”
The United Way of Lethbridge and South Western Alberta will be offering the grant writing expertise for the training program, confirmed Janelle Marietta-Vasquez, director of fund development and operations with the United Way.
“It’s important for us to be a resource hub and a support system for our non-profits in this region,” said Marietta-Vasquez. “We want to ensure these programs are funded and supported and effective moving forward for our community. So we felt this was a great opportunity to align with the City and SHIA ... We want to help build the skill sets our non-profits need to be effective.”
Grant writing is a vital art for any non-profit to be able to master, said Marietta-Vasquez, and learning the knack of it could mean the difference between stable growth and efficient programming, and the inefficient delivery of programs and services due to persistent fiscal uncertainties.
“You have to be able to look at the impact you are making and create measurements and be effective in communicating that back to granting organizations,” stated Marietta-Vasquez. “To give our nonprofits skill sets to be effective at that process, and help them understand what granters are looking for, gives them a hand up at securing those dollars.”
For more information on the grant-writing pilot project, contact the United Way of Lethbridge and South Western Alberta.
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