Calaveras Community Foundation Funding Emergency Needs
Angels Camp, CA — Nonprofits serving on the COVID-19 front are getting some financial relief via grants from a local foundation that is fueling essential efforts.
Calaveras Community Foundation (CCF) Treasurer Brent Harrington, who spoke Wednesday with Clarke Broadcasting while out of the office, estimates that since the nonprofit philanthropic group began offering funding and soliciting donations two weeks ago, its board has approved seven or eight grants totaling between $20,000 and $25,000 out of an applicant pool of 18 to 20 queries.
He specifies that while needs are expanding, CCF’s focus is not on trying to make an organization whole but to cover extra, immediate needs during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
While unfulfilled requests have involved covering staff salaries, rents and utilities, those that have received monies include nonprofit food banks and organizations that have stepped up and are preparing and/or delivering food to shut-ins and others who cannot get their own, and those providing child care services. Among the groups funded to date are the Arnold Women of the Moose and the Resource Connection.
Harrington says CCF is encouraging more queries geared to fulfilling essential equipment, supplies and service needs, adding that the turnaround time is quick — about two days — for checks to be cut funding requests that get at least six votes from the ten-member board.
Simple Process, Direct Instructions
Email is the best way to initiate communications via info@calaverascommunityfoundation.org. The process is simple, he says with award letters sent containing specific instructions. Basically, “Here’s your grant — you have three months to spend it and send us a report. If you don’t spend it, send it back…if you do, send us a request if you need more.”
As far as incoming donations to expand CCF’s funding pot, Harrington says two donations totaling $1,250 have so far come into the office. He acknowledges fundraising will probably be a difficult prospect since unlike the Butte Fire emergency, which drew a “huge” amount of donations — many from out-of-state, the COVID-19 crisis is impacting just about everyone, everywhere. For that reason the board is beginning outreach efforts to existing larger donors.
With the country, state and region moving into the recovery process in the months ahead, Harrington says the foundation is beginning to discuss what its role might be and that it will undoubtedly follow the process. “We look at this as a long-term situation and going to have to do a lot more studying,” he says.
In the meantime, he shares that the foundation, now in its 20th year serving Calaveras County, has sufficient funds to provide a good deal of assistance, partly due to monies put away after the Butte Fire. “We anticipated some kind of disaster at some point but did not think it would be like this, he acknowledges dryly.
Asked how he hopes residents will continue to locally cope with the crisis, he confides, “I always like the British phrase ‘stay calm and carry on’…we will get through this — and it is important to stay positive.” More information about CCF, including how to help address essential local needs through the foundation’s auspices are available on its website by clicking here.
