Akron Community Foundation awards $5 million in quarterly grants, approves education, proactive funding

Funding focuses on mentoring, literacy, housing and mental health 

Akron Community Foundation's board recently announced quarterly grants totaling $5 million. The board also approved nearly $1.2 million in competitive grants selected by the foundation's Community Investment Committee for both its education grant cycle and its latest round of proactive grant funding.  

As part of its recently redesigned proactive grantmaking process, the foundation approved grants focused on housing, mental health, and public safety. These grants support programs with the potential for significant, long-term community impact through two funding categories: 

Systems Change ($150,000 multi-year grants) supports efforts to improve policies, structures, and systems to create lasting transformation. 
Systems Capacity ($50,000 one-time grants) helps organizations strengthen internal operations so they can grow, adapt, and sustain transformative changes within the systems they operate. 

In the first year, $404,000 of the proactive grants were approved to be distributed, ensuring organizations have the resources needed to create positive change in the community. Three organizations will receive one-time Systems Capacity grants. The four organizations receiving Systems Change grants will be eligible for additional funding over the next two years, up to $150,000, if the program or project makes progress on its intended outcomes. In total, up to $750,000 in proactive grant funding will be available over the three-year period.  

Among the nonprofits receiving a systems change grant is the Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center, which will receive $50,000 in the first year to offer culturally responsive sexual abuse prevention programs for high-risk youth. An extension of the Erin's Law state mandate, the program will provide outreach to the county prosecutor's office, local schools and other institutions to offer advocacy and mental health support, along with ways for victims of abuse to be able to disclose and report information.  

"Through this initiative, we will work with the young folks in the schools, providing them information about consent, healthy relationships, and unfortunately, if something does happen, giving them the tools to find that safe model to disclose," said Teresa Stafford, CEO of Hope and Healing Survivor Resource Center, who added, "People tend to think about sex abuse, about how it impacts the individual, but it impacts so many systems. When children experience sex abuse at an early age, it impacts their ability to engage in schoolwork." 

Community Legal Aid received a $50,000 systems capacity grant to help empower renters to learn about their legal rights to safe and healthy housing. The program enables tenants living in unsafe and unhealthy housing conditions to put their rent in escrow with the help of the court system to force landlords to make necessary repairs. 

"The challenge is when you look at our low-income communities, if you just drive through those neighborhoods, you can see from the outside some of the poor quality of housing that exists in our community," said Steven McGarrity, executive director of Community Legal Aid. "And when you go into the homes, the conditions are often unimaginable for many people: leaking roofs, plumbing that doesn't work, toilets that don't function, appliances that don't work, ovens that don't work."  

To see the full list of proactive grants, visit akroncf.org/ProactiveGrants. 

In addition, a total of 39 organizations will receive $764,109 in education grants, including ASIA, Inc., which received a $20,000 grant for its International Community Empowerment Project, a program that helps immigrant and refugee youth better adapt to the community through language services, homework assistance, summer camps and leadership training, among other avenues. 

"We provide language services so that participants can adapt to the English language, and we also help them with academics, because a lot of them are struggling with the academics with an education system they're not accustomed to," said Harry Kamdar, CEO of ASIA, Inc. "And we also give them enrichment opportunities so they can grow up to be productive citizens and become future leaders of our community." 

This quarter, $34,250 in education funding was contributed by the Antalvari Family Fund, the Charles E. and Mary K. Booth Family Fund, the MAH Fund, the Merryweather Family Fund, the Tucker Family Fund, and an anonymous fundholder through the community foundation's grant co-investment program, which enables donor-advised fundholders to review the board's competitive grant applications and support initiatives that align with their charitable interests.   

For a full list of education grants, visit akroncf.org/EducationGrants. 

About Akron Community Foundation 
For 69 years, Akron Community Foundation has been our community's champion and generator of enduring philanthropy. In 1955, a $1 million bequest from the estate of Edwin Shaw established the community foundation. It is a philanthropic endowment of more than $305 million with a growing family of more than 900 funds established by charitable people and organizations from all walks of life. The community foundation and its funds welcome gifts of all kinds, including cash, bequests, stock, real estate, life insurance and retirement assets, just to name a few. To date, the community foundation's funds have awarded nearly $259 million in grants to qualified nonprofit organizations. For more information about Akron Community Foundation or to learn more about creating your own charitable fund, call 330-376-8522 or visit akroncf.org.