The Greater Washington Community Foundation recently announced close to $1.1 million in grants awarded through it’s Sharing Community Funds this past cycle.
Sharing Community Funds are designed bring donors together to invest in the issues and organizations that make the most impact in their neighborhood. We facilitate education and civic engagement around local issues – allowing donors to learn, first-hand, about the challenges facing the most marginalized residents in their communities. Donors then have the opportunity to join other donors and Community Foundation staff for a grant review process, as together we identify and fund the organizations working to resolve those challenges.
We reached out to Sharing Community Fund Nonprofit Partners to ask them what impact this funding will have on their organization. Here are quotes from a few of those organizations. Click here for the complete list of Sharing Community Fund Nonprofit Partners.
Sharing DC
“Sharing DC will allow Dreaming Out Loud to continue building capacity towards transforming the regional food system and food economy to benefit communities that have traditionally been excluded from both access and economic opportunity. With new staff, including a Sales Manager and Wholesale Manager, we’ll be able to procure more produce and products from Black farmers and sold into our Black Farm Community Supported Agriculture Program, DC school food, and other channels that reach communities where they live, work, and play — meanwhile creating living wage jobs within the community.
This next year we look forward to growing our capacity to better communicate our impact in bringing good food jobs to communities that regularly face double-digit unemployment. Our impact will contribute to modeling an equitable recovery that forces a conversation and deeply needed, radical policy initiatives to repair communities — like holistic and comprehensive reparations.”
— Christopher Bradshaw, Founder & Executive Director, Dreaming Out Loud, Inc.
“Support from Sharing DC allows Empower DC to build on recent successes in the areas of equitable development, environmental justice and racial equity. Policy victories are hard fought and deserve to be celebrated - but the often less visible work to fund, implement and enforce new policies is just as critical.
Over the next year Empower DC will be organizing to ensure that Ivy City's long awaited Crummell School Community Center and the community's first ever Small Area Plan reflect the needs and priorities of longtime residents to secure affordable housing and address environmental issues. We'll also be working to ensure meaningful implementation of the new policies we secured in the city's Comprehensive Plan requiring racial equity analysis in planning and zoning.
This work, and our ongoing grassroots organizing efforts to improve public housing and advance environmental justice, is not possible without the support we are receiving from Sharing DC and other likeminded funding initiatives.”
— Parisa Norouzi, Executive Director, Empower DC
Sharing Prince George’s
“Community Crisis Services Inc. (CCSI) would like to thank The Greater Washington Community Foundation and the Sharing Prince George’s County Fund for their continued support of CCSI programming.
Funding from the Sharing Prince George’s Fund has allowed CCSI the ability to support those in crisis through rental assistance; meals, clothing, transportation and personal needs for the guests at our Warm Nights Homeless and Safe Passages Domestic Violence Safe House shelter programs; the expansion of our domestic violence and suicide prevention ‘Chat’ services and our ability to launch the CrisisMInd Mobile Crisis Unit in Prince George’s County.
CCSI could not continue the life-changing programming we offer without funding from organizations such as The Greater Washington Community Foundation, and grants such as Sharing Prince George’s. We understand what a privilege and honor it is to receive funding, and work diligently to create an empathetic, compassionate experience for our shelter guests, callers and ‘Chat’ responders.”
-– Bill Leary, Development Director, Community Crisis Services, Inc.
“The objectives of the Sharing Prince George's Fund align directly with the strategic vision and work of CASA as we jointly endeavor to address the racial wealth gap and ensure an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The essential support CASA will receive through the Fund will provide critical employment, legal and educational services to BIPOC communities within Prince George's County that have long experienced structural barriers that impeded their full potential to thrive. Working together and thanks to these resources, we expect to significantly contribute to strengthening the resiliency of this community.”
–-George Escobar, Chief of Programs and Services, CASA
Sharing Montgomery
“Sharing Montgomery and The Community Foundation in Montgomery County have been incredibly powerful and generous partners for CollegeTracks as we have grown and thrived. Their support has given us a strong, local partner who understands the communities we are serving and shares our vision of a more just and equitable future for our County. Not only have our Sharing Montgomery grants been a great asset in our work, but their grants process puts us in touch with stakeholders across our community who have become supporters, partners, and transformative Board members for CollegeTracks as well. We would not be in the strong position we are in without Sharing Montgomery and The Community Foundation in Montgomery County, and we are deeply grateful to the Community Foundation's team and community!”
-- Mecha Inman | Chief Executive Officer, CollegeTracks
“The Greater Washington Community Foundation’s Sharing Montgomery and other COVID-related relief grants were the catalysts to CareerCatcher’s ability to offer expanded services to more clients at the start of the pandemic. In 2020, with their support, we added staff to help Montgomery County residents address their immediate and critical needs, assisting residents with receiving cash payments through the County’s Emergency Assistance Relief Payment program; filing for expanded Unemployment Benefits; improving their skills through training; increasing our outreach; and serving 50% more people than the year before. This initial and ongoing support from GWCF allows CareerCatchers to continue to offer expanded services to more residents as COVID-19 economic restrictions are eased and to help clients get back into the workforce.”
-- Mariana A. McNeill, Executive Director, The CareerCatchers, Inc.