There is still time for organizations to apply for support from a local fund that handed out in excess of $1 million last year.
The Chatham-Kent Community Foundation (CKCF) is holding its spring intake, where charitable organizations can apply for support funding.
The majority of the funding comes from the CKCF’s Community Fund, as well as the South Kent Wind Community Fund, a donor-advised fund within the CKCF.
Chris Pegg, executive director of the CKCF, said 2023 provided the organization with a perfect storm of sorts for disbursing funds. About $300,000 of the funds the CKCF distributed came from the Community Services Recovery Fund, a federal government funding stream the CKCF administered locally.
On top of that, funding for disbursement increased from what was available in previous years.
“Last year was the first year we were dealing with the new disbursement quota, an amount set by the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) to disburse as grants,” Pegg said. “Before last year, it was 3.5 per cent and then it went up to five per cent.”
That represented an increase in allocated funds of nearly 42 per cent above previous years.
Pegg said the fund sits at more than $12 million.
“We never touch the capital,” he said. “We take donations and invest the funds. Grants are made on the returns on those investments.”
In 2023, 70 groups benefited from support funding, ranging from the Children’s Treatment Centre to R.O.C.K. Missions to the Mary Webb Centre. Funds have gone to expand community gardens, feed the hungry, improve mobility for stroke victims, and more.
More than $98,000 was granted to Opportunity Villages Community Land Trust’s 30-unit small home development and community centre in Chatham. The project will incorporate life lease, Net Zero, and affordable home ownership for low- to moderate-income individuals and families.
Pegg said he has no favourite cause among the 70 groups that benefitted from disbursements in 2023, and only wishes they could help even more.
“We’re pretty proud of these numbers. We really appreciate the donations that we receive,” he said. “We really wish we could fund 100 per cent of every application that we receive, but we can’t.”
About $700,000 will be disbursed this year. Pegg said that will increase as the main fund grows.
“As the endowment grows that five per cent of that larger number is going to mean more in grants,” he said.
The CKCF is taking applications for spring funding until the end of March, with the fall intake slated for mid-August until the end of September.
For more information on the CKCF, visit ChathamKentCommunityFoundation.ca or call 519-351-3348.
The CKCF is a broad-based, volunteer-driven, philanthropic organization creating, preserving and growing perpetual funds to help donors to have an everlasting impact on the development of the community through grants to registered charitable organizations.
The CKCF disbursed its first grants to the community in May of 1993.
