Pandemic Prompts Changes to Grant Process
Impact grants adapt to COVID-19 response and recovery;
Basic Needs investment adopts 2-year cycle
The challenges of COVID-19 have prompted temporary changes to our impact work timeline and grant process.
To support our current grant partners through the remainder of the pandemic and the anticipated post-COVID recovery, we are limiting impact grant investment through the 2022-2023 fiscal year to partners with existing grants.
This change does not affect Basic Needs grants. Those requests for proposal will continue to be open to all Shawnee and Jefferson County nonprofit agencies.
Over the first decade of impact grants, initiatives were awarded for a three-year cycle. The current cycle ends June 30, 2021 and was the last of three cycles planned under the original Community Impact strategic plan.
Nearly every program currently supported with a UWGT impact grant has been seriously disrupted by COVID-19. School interventions, job readiness training and financial stability programs have been forced to adapt to virtual formats or reduce capacity. We have worked closely with all partners to modify program expectations to best support the children, teens, adults and families they serve.
While donors like you and our corporate partners have remained incredibly supportive and generous through the start of the new year, we have pledged to remain fiscally cautious. As the pandemic wears on, we realistically have to anticipate a potential decrease in the donations that support impact work (which are kept separate from funds designated to the COVID-19 relief fund last year and from Christmas Bureau). This concern has prompted the conservative move to limit new grant applications.
Had COVID not intervened, we would have already completed a new round of strategic planning and revised impact goals and strategies. New proposals would have been requested and grants awarded. However, such a drastic change in the current uncertain environment felt unrealistic and unwise to our staff, board and volunteers.
Instead, the board supported staff recommendations to provide an abbreviated concept paper application process to existing impact grant partners for the next two fiscal years. This process allows continuity of support for critical programs while helping each partner refocus resources in ways best suited to pandemic response and recovery.
The temporary pause in new impact work will give us and the community time to assess and address the damage from COVID-19 before committing to new impact goals.
“Honestly, so many of our partners are still feeling their way through the pandemic,” said Brett Martin, Vice President of Community Impact. “Everything seems to be in constant flux, so flexibility has been really important. Trying to impose a new framework on our impact grants felt impossible and unwise when we took into account that we haven’t yet felt the full impact of COVID on our community and on the overall support system. We are doing everything we can to make sure our partners get the resources they need to keep helping people. The changes we have settled on give us the best balance of responsiveness and responsibility to our community and our donors.”
Existing impact partners will submit concept papers in February. We will work with all partners to maximize the benefit of each initiative and support partners in continuing to adapt to the evolving post-COVID landscape.
UWGT Basic Needs grants—for food, medical, rent and utility assistance, as well as safety from domestic violence—have operated under a separate grant process for the past decade. To better mesh these critical support systems with long-term impact goals, basic needs grants will soon become a formal component of our Financial Stability work.
Martin said the change represented an evolution of the way UWGT views the continuum of financial stability. “We recognize that our Basic Needs investments are critical supports for individuals and families in crisis,” he said. “Moving Basic Needs into our Financial Stability work is a natural fit. Sometimes people need these emergency supports to reinforce their family budgets before taking larger steps toward financial stability and eventually prosperity.”
Starting this spring, Basic Needs grants will be awarded on a two-year cycle, instead of the previous one-year model. This grantmaking change will provide additional stability to partners and reduce the work associated with annual applications. We will release more information on the upcoming Basic Needs Request for Proposals in early February.