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The Mid-Shore Community Foundation recently reported that it awarded $639,318 in grants to 150 organizations across the Mid-Shore in 2005, the highest number of grants awarded in a year in the organization’s history. Since 2002, the Foundation has awarded $1,407,214 to nonprofit organizations in Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s and Talbot counties.
According to Charles T. Capute, Esq., chairman of the Board for the Mid-Shore Community Foundation, “We continue to make new relationships with nonprofit organizations across the Mid-Shore. The increased number of grant applications we reviewed this year, as well as the actual awards, reflects the growth of our organization over the last few years.”
Approximately 35 donor-advised funds supported this year’s round of grants, funding projects in arts and culture, community development, education, environment, health, human services, and recreation. The Foundation circulates grant requests through three possible funding sources – discretionary funds, donor-advised funds, and family foundation members of its Foundation Roundtable.
In Caroline County, Adkins Arboretum received a $2,000 grant from the Foundation’s discretionary funds to expand its Children’s Environmental Program. The Foundation then circulated the request among its fund advisors and Roundtable members. According to Ellie Altman, executive director of the Arboretum, “The most exciting part of the grant process was seeing our $2,000 grant from the Mid-Shore Community Foundation leveraged to result in a total award of $12,000 for our Children’s Environmental Education Program.”
To better meet the financial needs of organizations like Adkins Arboretum, the Mid-Shore Community Foundation will conduct a Community Needs Assessment Study of the region through the Business, Economic, and Community Outreach Network (BEACON), the community outreach entity of the Franklin P. Perdue School of Business at Salisbury University in the coming year. This assessment will help the Foundation ensure its funding is addressing the needs of the region.
Alice Bower, chairman of the Mid-Shore Community Foundation’s Grants Committee, comments, “Our grants committee continues to take a more active role visiting nonprofit organizations as a way of determining the needs in the community. We will continue to develop relationships with new organizations through our five County Advisory Committees in order to broaden our reach throughout the Mid-Shore.”
The Mid-Shore Community Foundation promotes and facilitates philanthropy on the Mid-Shore by assisting in the formation and management of charitable funds or “personal foundations,” created by local donors as philanthropic instruments for themselves and their families. The majority of charitable distributions from those funds are then used to support regional nonprofit organizations. The Foundation also assists in the creation and management of scholarships, memorial funds, and endowment funds for nonprofit agencies.
For further information about the Mid-Shore Community Foundation, call F. Graham Lee, President, at 410-820-8175 or visit their website at www.mscf.org.
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