A notable point of discussion after the latest round of grants, was the lack of funding for housing, one of the main “buckets” the endowment wants to focus on — another point was that major institutions with established revenue streams received large amounts of money.
Buster explained the decision by saying the housing organizations had all applied separately and did not have a collective approach to housing together, but he intends to figure one out.
“Let’s create an approach that we can collectively say this is New Hanover County’s approach to housing. So, we will have the opportunity to bring those grants back to our board and hopefully our board can invest in those organizations instead of one at a time," he said.
When it came to funding large institutions, Buster noted that CFCC and UNCW had actually asked for more funding than they got — and that the Endowment only provided funding where the government didn’t, like the training and retention of nurses for the region.
Commissioners pressed Buster on how smaller nonprofits could ‘compete’ with larger institutions. Buster said the Endowment is focused on building their ‘capacity — meaning staff, technical ability and expertise to handle larger amounts of money.
Buster also said the Endowment plans to release information on dates for a community forum where the public can speak directly about their day-to-day needs.