June 23, 2004
Wednesday

Bobbie McCreary is absolutely correct when she says that the future of local non-profits is a community foundation that would take over the funding of those groups from the Borough Assembly and the City Council.

It was very painful on Monday to watch the Assembly cut most of its local non-profit grant funding from the budget because I know - more that most - how crucial these groups are to the community and how necessary it is that they receive at least some portion of the funding from local government(s). Loss of that borough grant money will lead to loss of a portion of outside grant monies and service cutbacks that leave everyone in the community as the eventual losers. I also understand the difficulty these groups face with the threat of funding cuts hanging over them each year and the emotional rollercoaster their supporters (and users) undergo when they have to fight for their slice of the pie each budget cycle.

That's why the community foundation - which has been bantered around for some time - must be developed soon. The trick is finding a source for an endowment that would support the grants into the future. While there is always a chance of attracting some outside money to help set up a foundation, we must first look within the community. Despite some dire predictions, the borough does have some money in reserve, as does the city and the Ketchikan Public Utilities that could be used for this purpose. If all three organizations were to work together it might be possible to at least start the foundation process and then get additional funding from outside. The benefit of putting some money into the foundation now would be that those three organizations would no longer have to use scarce yearly budget dollars for non-profit grant funding in the future.

The foundation benefit to the non-profits would be a stable, non-political funding process. The foundation could also be used to help non-profits save money through the pooling of resources in such areas as administration, grantwriting and fundraising. Setting up the foundation would require negotiations between the non-profits and also between the local governments. It would be a perfect opportunity to begin to repair some of the frayed relationships in our community.

Dave Kiffer
Ketchikan, AK - USA

Related Viewpoint:

To the Borough Assembly by Bobbie McCreary- Ketchikan, AK - USA

 

Related News:

Ketchikan: Listen to this KRBD story... Sales and property taxes will increase and schools will be funded to the cap under the Fiscal Year 2005 budget adopted by the Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly Monday night. As Deanna Garrison reports, the final day of budget discussions focused primarily on Borough grants to non-profit organizations.
KRBD - Ketchikan Public Radio - linked Wednesday - June 23, 2004

 

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