Explanation
Background: This ordinance authorizes the City Clerk to enter into a grant agreement with All Nations Worship Assembly Columbus, Ohio, Inc. in support of grassroots, community-oriented events and services.
Columbus City Council seeks to provide support to small, grassroots, community-oriented organizations through small, high-impact grants for programs that directly serve neighborhoods and communities in Columbus. A grant process was established to reach these organizations and achieve this goal.
The following criteria were established. All grants shall be in support of community-oriented events or services. No individual grant agreement shall exceed $25,000.00. Grants shall be paid out at two points in time to grantees, 50% in advance and 50% after the first tranche is spent or after the first three months of the grant term. All grantees must be not-for-profit organizations as defined in City Code 329.01(ff).
An application for the grant was published on the City Council website and remained open for three weeks. City Council received 31 applications for the grant program, 29 of which met the requirements stated above. A review committee read all of the 29 eligible applications and scored them on a scale of 0 to 50 based on four criteria:
· Alignment with City Council’s priorities of furthering: Affordable and Quality Housing, Good Jobs and Training, and Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods
· Provision of a direct service or benefit to local community members
· A clear plan and budget in place for the proposed program/event
· A plan to ensure that the community will be made aware of the program/event
Following an evaluation period and conversation, the committee narrowed down the group of top-scoring organizations for funding based on their geographic location, to ensure that a variety of neighborhoods and communities would be reached by the program.
The twenty-nine requests totaled $602,087.00 across all proposals. Fourteen non-profit organizations...
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