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New Hanover Community Endowment gives presentation to commissioners

WHQR

At Monday’s county commissioner meeting, New Hanover Community Endowment CEO William Buster gave an update on the Endowment’s activities, and fielded questions about last month’s round of grants.

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.

Related: New Hanover Community Endowment announces $22-million healthcare worker pipeline grant, $33 million in additional grants

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.

Camille hails from Long Island, NY and graduated from Boston University with a BS in Journalism and double minors in Classical Civilizations and Philosophy. Her story focus revolves her deep care for children, young adults and mental health. You can reach her at cmojica@whqr.org.