By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
This year the city has two grant programs that nonprofit organizations are eligible to apply for.
One application, posted now on the city website, allows nonprofits to apply for a share of the $50,000 in “nonprofit community support” for fiscal year 2021. The deadline for applications is August 21.
The second – with more details to be announced later – will be for a share of the $5 million in federal CARES Act funds dedicated for both nonprofit and for-profit businesses to cover financial impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. Final approval of the budget for the program is expected at the July 28 Assembly meeting.
City Controller Melissa Haley said the timing of the two is similar. But she added that the application for the CARES Act funds will be posted on the city’s COVID-19 website instead of the main page.
Community Support
The city of Sitka website has a link on its main page to the application for the “general fund grants for nonprofit organizations.”
Each year the Assembly awards grants of city funds to major nonprofits such as Sitkans Against Family Violence ($50,000); Center for Community for the RIDE bus service ($25,000); Sitka Economic Development Association ($63,000); and Sitka Historical Society for the Sitka History Museum ($97,200).
Another $50,000 is dedicated to “community support,” open to applications from nonprofits under categories of human services, cultural and educational services, community development, and special emergencies.
The Assembly sets the process for distributing the funds, but in the past each organization has needed at least four Assembly votes to get an award.
CARES Act Funds
The city plans to post the applications for both for-profit and nonprofit entities soon after the Assembly gives final approval to the $5 million budget for the purpose, finance staff said.
An ordinance was approved on first reading July 14, to dedicate $5 million to “support COVID-19 pandemic-related economic relief efforts for local businesses and nonprofits.”
It will be up for final reading at the regular meeting July 28.
The $5 million will come out of the overall $14,057,653.37 in federal COVID relief Sitka has received.
The Assembly has already approved $4.5 million for utility and moorage relief for individual applicants (applications due July 31).
Other ordinances up for final reading next Tuesday would dedicate the rest of the $14 million to new city programs, pandemic mitigation, school computers and Americorps volunteers; and contingency, as recommended by the Working Group.
Haley said the city’s goal is to continue fine-tuning the application process for nonprofits and for-profits in order to open the application period by August 1.
Assembly members have said that the grant awards are not intended to make businesses and nonprofits “whole” but to help them survive.
The draft grant application – the same for both nonprofit and for-profit businesses – allows both to apply for set amounts of funds, depending on 2019 gross revenues.
There is another option:
“The gross revenue for my organization does not appropriately capture the scope of the services my business or nonprofit provides to the community and I would like the Assembly to consider, in public session, awarding at one of the levels reserved for organizations of higher revenue.”
Haley clarified that the maximum grant awarded is $10,000.
The categories are as follows for those with 2019 gross revenues:
- under $100,000 ($2,500 grant).
- over $100,000 but less than $250,000 ($5,000 grant).
- over $250,000 but less than $500,000 ($7,500 grant)
- over $500,000 ($10,000 grant).
