40 nonprofits share $750K in PNM grants
Foundation’s program this year called ‘New Century of Service’
The PNM Resources Foundation has deposited $750,000 into the bank accounts of 40 nonprofits across its New Mexico service territory.
The donations are part of the foundation’s annual grant awards, begun in 1983. This year’s program, titled “New Century of Service” in recognition of Public Service Company of New Mexico’s centennial celebration, provided top grants of $50,000 to five organizations:
Cultivating Coders to support coding boot camps for high school students in Albuquerque’s South Valley.
Fathers Building Futures to scale up the Albuquerque wood shop where fathers make caskets and urns for the funeral industry.
St. Martin’s Hospitality Center in Albuquerque for on-the-job training for five homeless people in the center’s Hope Cafe internship program.
Galloping Grace Youth Ranch in Rio Rancho for its food recovery program to educate youth, create jobs and alleviate hunger
Reunity Resources in Santa Fe to expand its community farm, which grows food for anti-hunger efforts while training young farmers, homeless people and at-risk youth.
Another 10 organizations received $25,000 grants, and 25 nonprofits received grants of $10,000 each.
“It’s an honor for the PNM Resources Foundation to invest this money in our New Mexico communities,” said foundation President Becky Teague in a statement. “We are excited to support projects which will promote jobs, services and education in hometowns across the state.”
The grants aim to promote economic development, education and the environment in PNM’s service area, said PNM spokeswoman Shannon Jackson. They’re awarded to organizations that innovate new products and services to grow and develop local businesses, create collaborative community spaces for public use and provide educational opportunities that support economic development.
All grants come from shareholder donations to the foundation, which manages a $20 million endowment.
“Many of these shareholders that donated money to the endowment are from New Mexico and want to see the very communities in which we all live, work, and raise our families succeed,” Jackson told the Journal. Over the past 10 years, the foundation has donated a total of $9.56 million to local nonprofits. The foundation is run as a separate, nonprofit, tax exempt corporation governed by a board comprised of PNM employees.