KALAMAZOO, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – A Kalamazoo County ad-hoc committee will meet for the first time Monday to take on the difficult task of whittling down a long list of applicants for special funding
The county’s Community Grants program was popular last year with local agencies looking for funding for special projects.
The county board has set aside $400,000 for the grants, and received requests for ten times that much money.
The applicants include 47 local non-profits and 7 smaller governmental units all requesting dollars from the pot.
“In total we’ve received 55 applications for a total of 3,900,000 plus dollars,” says board chair Jen Strebs.
Strebs says it will be up to the committee to rank the applications using a scoring matrix that has been provided by staff.
“Evidence of the impact, the number of people it would serve, feasibility, if there’s a target for high need populations, and how it aligns with our strategic initiatives.”
Board vice chair John Taylor suggested they pick projects that are short term or for one-time funding.
“I really like it to be short term projects that organizations are doing as opposed to them relying on that money for operational stuff because that gets us in trouble in the long term.”
The board has limited the scope and size of the requests this year, to avoid receiving some of the huge requests they got last year.
The first meeting of the ad hoc group gets underway at noon at the Kalamazoo County Administration Building and it’s open to the public.
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