The largest grant, worth $3 million, supports the Forward Fund, an off-shoot of Cape Fear Collective focused on short-term loans for students involved in skilled trades, technology, and healthcare. The idea is to provide low-barrier, 0% interest loans to students entering short-term job training programs.
Executive Director Meaghan Dennison says the program aims to help local workers change fields or move into higher-paid work.
"We're going to start with 10-to-12-week boot camp-style, short-term training programs. You know, electrical line work, CDL, truck driving, welding, plumbing pipe fitting — also at the community college," she said.
Eventually, the revolving loan fund will expand to cover longer programs, like the two-year nursing program at Cape Fear Community College.
Dennison says the $3 million grant from the Endowment has been matched by nearly $4 million in private funds, "so we do have just south of a $7 million fund, and each dollar will be recycled through multiple students.”
The program will cover education costs like tuition and fees, but can also cover basic living expenses for a student. Dennison says the aim is to reduce barriers so students can succeed. The Forward Fund will kick off its pilot program this fall.
Other new grants
Another major grant, $2.5 million over three years, will support disaster preparedness programming through the Red Cross. Much of the grant money will pass through to other local nonprofits as part of the Community Adaptation Program.
Several other six-figure grants were included in this round.
Planned Parenthood received a two-year, $200,000 grant for a program, "home visits, evidence-based sex education, and access to medical care to help pregnant and parenting teens delay having a second child until completing high school. The program also provides pathways to resources, including transportation, job interviews, and more," according to the
Endowment.
The Pine Forest Education and Learning Center received a $131,000 grant for educational programs and civic engagement; the Carousel Center received $200,000 to support its core mission of supporting children who have suffered physical and sexual abuse.
There were also smaller grants, including $60,000 for St. Mary’s Health Center for capacity building, $4,000 for Retake, which takes portraits of survivors of natural disasters, and roughly $35,000 for WHQR Public Media, which is receiving a passthrough grant to provide emergency radios to the community.
Perhaps the most surprising grant is $200,000 for the Arts Council of Wilmington and New Hanover County, to be doled out to various arts organizations in the community. Previous Endowment CEO William Buster told a crowd late last year that arts programming wasn’t in the short-term plan for the Endowment, so the new allocation might come as a surprise.
But Endowment spokesperson Kevin Maurer says the funding is consistent with the organization’s goals.
“I think we see the value in and what the arts sector creates around employment and revenue. And you can't have a vibrant community without a strong arts scene and arts community, and so partnering with [Arts Council director] Rhonda [Bellamy] gave us a chance to invest in this sector," he said.
Maurer also says nonprofits in the community should reach out to the Endowment for a meeting if they want to seek funding, because the organization no longer plans to follow the massive annual grant cycles it rolled out in its first two years.
