nonprofit Archives - KCAW

Assembly awards $45,000 in grant funds to local nonprofits

Katherine Rose — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 21:12:00 +0000

When the Sitka Assembly met in a special session on Thursday (9-23-21), it disbursed around $45,000 in grant funding for seven local nonprofits.

In the human services” category, it voted to award Brave Heart Volunteers just over $8000, just under $6000 to Sitka Counseling, nearly $5000 to the Sitka Homeless Coalition, and just over $8000 to Southeast Alaska Independent Living,

In the “cultural and educational services” category, the assembly awarded $7500 to the Sitka Fine Arts Camp. It also awarded Baranof Bruins Wrestling around $4500, and just under $6000 to Sitka Trail Works, in the “Community Development” category.

View the full award breakdown here

Typically the Assembly awards around $50,000 in nonprofit grants each year. Each organization requests an amount, and each assembly member gets a chance to allocate the funds as they see fit. The assembly members’ “suggestions” are then averaged together, and the group votes on the award amounts for each category. All of the grant amounts were approved 5-0. The assembly also agreed to set aside $5000 from the grant fund, which could be distributed in an emergency.

With its budget uncertain, Sitka Assembly postpones annual nonprofit grant awards

Katherine Rose — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 23:09:53 +0000

The Sitka Assembly is postponing its decision on how to distribute $50,000 in funding to the community’s nonprofit organizations, until it has more clarity on its own budget.

Every year the assembly sets aside money for grants to nonprofits, many of which provide social services in the town. This year, eight nonprofits applied for portions of the available $50,000, including organizations like Braveheart, the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, and Sitka Counseling. But with a precarious city budgeting season on the horizon for next fiscal year, a majority of the assembly, including Member Thor Christianson, wanted to hold off on distributing the funds.

“I’m advocating postponing not canceling this, though it may look a little different at the time. I think the picture will be clearer in two months,” he said.

Member Kevin Knox was not in favor of a postponement, and said the assembly should approve the grant distributions. He said the money helps organizations gain leverage to get more money, and for many of them, their proposals wouldn’t be covered with federal CARES Act funds, which has strict parameters.

Member Steven Eisenbeisz was also wary of postponing a decision.

“I understand delaying the vote, I understand going forward with the vote now,” he said. “It’s been budgeted, we knew that this was coming up. We would have had an opportunity during budget times to pull it back if we thought necessary, but we also didn’t know the breadth of this COVID [pandemic].”

During public comment, several applicants to the grant program asked assembly members to reconsider postponing a vote to distribute the funds. Michele Friedman at Braveheart said her staff had budgeted in anticipation of receiving the grant. And COVID-19 had made grant funding even more crucial to the organization’s operations, as they usually depend on public events to make up some of their fundraising.

“We usually make a good chunk of money from Alaska Day. And then we make some money on our bowls event. And those things are not happening this year for us,” she said. “It is a time that we do need this money coming in and we’ve budgeted it, we’ve planned on it.”

Assembly member Richard Wein said now was not the time to be moving money from the general fund, when the city had CARES Act money they could direct toward some of the nonprofits that applied.

“I would like to make sure everybody is happy. But the thing is, is that the city has to be happy as well, otherwise we’re just going to be Shel Silverstein’s tree [referring to a character from the book ‘The Giving Tree’] and I don’t think that’s a place to be.”

The assembly voted 4-3 to postpone the distribution of the funds until its first meeting in November. The vote was 4-3 with Mayor Gary Paxton and Members Knox and Eisenbeisz voting against the postponement.

While the assembly postponed this round of grant funding, at the same meeting it approved another wave of grants for businesses and nonprofits, to be funded with the city’s leftover CARES Act money. Read that story here.

City aims to support local businesses with CARES Act funds

Katherine Rose — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 19:59:09 +0000

Small businesses and nonprofits in Sitka now qualify for CARES Act grants through a city program. Pictured: businesses in downtown Sitka (KCAW/Berett Wilber)

Sitka businesses and nonprofits can now apply for federal CARES Act funding through the city.

The city has set aside $5 million in coronavirus relief funding for business and non-profit grants. Applications for the grants went live over the weekend (8-1-20). How much a business qualifies for depends on its previous annual revenue with grants topping out at $10,000. Though there’s only one application, there are separate sets of questions for businesses and nonprofits.

View the application here

The funding comes with some restrictions– national chain businesses, public corporations and marijuana businesses do not qualify for the grants, nor does any business currently involved in bankruptcy proceedings. Businesses must have a permanent presence in Sitka with at least one local employee.

Grant applications are due to the city by August 31.