Faced with a 25 percent across-the-board cut in municipal funding, Santa Cruz nonprofits received some good news on Thursday. The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County announced that it is giving almost $750,000 to a wide range of nonprofits that provide safety-net services for the local community.
Faced with a 25 percent across-the-board cut.html in municipal funding{/url], Santa Cruz nonprofits received some good news on Thursday. The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County announced that it is giving almost $750,000 to a wide range of nonprofits that provide safety-net services for the local community. The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County hopes to provide over $5 million in grants this year.
There was an audible sigh of relief from many nonprofits, some of which were threatened with closure because of municipal and county cutbacks. Dr. Patrick Meehan of the Women’s Health Center says, “Without this kind of support, we wouldn’t be able to increase the number of patients as is demanded.” The Center, which has doubled its patient load over the past five years, received a $25,000 grant.
In related news, the City of Santa Cruz has decided to review the criteria used to determine how funding is distributed among local nonprofits. According to Councilman Ryan Coonerty, “A lot of the funding levels were set historically when the city first started funding social service providers in the early 1980s.” While the sums have increased dramatically, the percentage that each nonprofit received remained more or less static, without any serious review of how the money is being spent. The new proposal would have nonprofits justify their need for funding to ensure that money stays in the community and that the city is getting the best services it can for the dollars spent. Read More at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
