Update // Phase Two - Southwest Montana COVID-19 Response Fund
Update // Phase Two - Southwest Montana COVID-19 Response Fund
Since March, the One Valley Community Foundation and the Greater Gallatin United Way have co-hosted the Southwest Montana COVID-19 Response Fund to provide flexible resources to organizations working with individuals and populations disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and the health and economic consequences of this outbreak.
Our phase one funding focused on five primary areas of need: food and supply distribution, emergency housing, emergency financial assistance, health and wellbeing, and programs and supplies needed to support crisis response. With the generosity of more than 370 donors, our organizations raised $514,741 for the Response Fund which we received mostly within the first 8 weeks.
Alongside our Donation Steering Group made up of 13 members representing City + County governments, nonprofits, businesses, and philanthropy consultants, we reviewed over 60 applications and made awards to 55 nonprofits. The total funding awarded to date is from the Response Fund is $442,607. The average award was just over $8,000. In the coming weeks, we anticipate spending down the remainder of this fund balance on critical needs.
As phase one of our funding comes to a close, we’re trying to determine what is next for the Southwest Montana COVID-19 Response Fund. While we hoped that we would be in a recovery phase for our community at this point, that is simply not the case. Over the past few weeks, our organizations collected survey data from 60+ nonprofits to get their feedback on needs they are seeing in their organizations and in the populations they serve. Additionally, they provided us feedback on what they anticipate the needs being for our region moving forward. In summary, the needs are tremendous.
Based on the nonprofit survey data, here are trends we’re seeing:
For nonprofits: Need for unrestricted, multi-year support.
For the community: Support for childcare, mental and behavioral health, financial assistance (bills, rental assistance, food security, access to healthcare, stable and affordable housing, internet access/technology needs.
From this data, the One Valley Community Foundation and the Greater Gallatin United Way have created three suggested funding priorities:
Childcare grants to support both service providers and systems coordination efforts, with a focus on accessibility and affordability.
Mental and Behavioral Health grants to support providers and community organizations with a focus on stress reduction, access to mental health care and improving mental wellbeing.
And finally, Emergency Financial Assistance (unrestricted operational and programmatic funding) grants focused on organizations that leverage relationships with community, trusted leaders, and service providers in order to support access to immediate basic needs (e.g. rental and mortgage assistance, emergency shelter, food, healthcare, financial support for individuals and families).
With a bit more time to reflect, we have identified priority populations we expect to serve during our second round of funding. They are:
People who are essential workers without health supports, childcare and out-of-school-time care, and other necessary services
People who are low income, experiencing homelessness, and others who are disproportionately economically impacted
People of color, people with disabilities, seniors, veterans and others who are experiencing disparate health impacts
And, people who will be missed by public funding opportunities, including undocumented immigrants and refugees
Last week, we spent time hosting webinars for our nonprofit community and for those who have invested in our fund or are looking to make a gift to the fund in the future. During these webinars, we shared the Fund’s work to date, the trends of needs we are seeing based on community and nonprofit survey data and shared the proposed phase two funding priorities. In these conversations, we also asked for feedback as to how we move forward with the Southwest Montana COVID-19 Response Fund.
In the next few weeks, our organizations will be making a final decision on our funding priorities but in the meantime, we’d love to hear from you. What do you think? Give us a call at 406-587-6262 or email me at bridget@onevalley.org to discuss our priorities.
Starting in September, the One Valley Community Foundation and the Greater Gallatin United Way will be launching a new fundraising effort to raise $500,000 in support for phase two efforts. We hope you will consider joining us in meeting our community’s tremendous needs at this time.
To see the recordings from last week’s webinars, check out the links below: