The grant cycle is open to agencies with 501(c)3 or equivalent non-profit status, such as faith-based or government organizations. Applications may be made for any amount up to the full amount of the grant pool. Grant applications will be considered each quarter with the first deadline at 5 p.m., Thursday, March 15, 2012. The grants will be awarded on Monday, March 26.

The Greene County Senior Services Fund Board was created after county voters in 2005 approved a levy of $0.05 per $100 of assessed valuation to provide services to residents aged 60 and over. The Tax Board is using $40,000 of its overall revenue to partner on this grant round. The CFO is matching those funds with $40,000 in private charitable dollars designated by donors for similar grantmaking goals for seniors.

The application form and instructions are available at: http://www.greenecountymo.org/senior_fund.

This grant cycle represents a new partnership between the two organizations. Preference will be given to proposals for innovative projects to improve the well-being of seniors in Greene County, said Denny Pilant, vice-chair of the Greene County Senior Citizens’ Services Tax Fund Board. The seven-member Tax Fund Board, which is appointed by the Greene County Commission, will consider the proposals each quarter as long as funding remains available.

The CFSWMO, an affiliate of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, will give preference to proposals that will increase the availability of new or rehabilitated affordable housing located in Joplin or Duquesne.

The application form is available online at: www.formstack.com/forms/CFO-cfswmotornado. The application deadline is 5 p.m., Friday, Feb. 17, 2012. Applications for other proposals also will be accepted, with preference given to housing needs. The application process is open to 501(c)3 and other IRS-recognized non-profit and charitable groups, such as faith-based organizations.

This grant cycle is made possible by the generosity of donors to the Joplin Recovery Fund administered by the CFO and CFSWMO; the Lilly Endowment, Inc.; the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation; and a $500,000 grant awarded Wednesday evening by The Home Depot Foundation in conjunction with the re-opening of the Joplin store destroyed in the May 22, 2011 tornado.

“The survivors of the May tornado cannot continue their journey toward recovery if they are still living in government-provided trailers or doubling up with family or friends,” CFO President Brian Fogle said. “With thousands of homes destroyed on May 22, we recognize that affordable housing is one of the highest-priority needs and one where philanthropy can help address that particular gap in the housing market.”

This is the second grant cycle available for the Joplin Recovery Fund, which the CFO/CFSWMO opened on May 23 to accept donations for mid- to long-term recovery needs. Since then, $300,000 has been awarded to 18 non-profit agencies.

For more information about the Joplin Recovery Fund, and other funds established by private donors for Joplin’s relief and recovery efforts, visit: www.joplinrecoveryfund.org. Donations to the Joplin Recovery Fund can be made online at: www.cfozarks.org/donate; or by mail to: Community Foundation of the Ozarks, P.O. Box 8960, Springfield, MO, 65801.

Joplin residents celebrated another milestone on their journey toward recovery with a grand re-opening of the Home Depot store, one of the sites hardest hit on May 22 when the tornado claimed the lives of an employee and several customers and destroyed the store.

Just as the Atlanta-based retailer had resolved to rebuild its own store, it also reinforced its commitment to rebuilding Joplin with The Home Depot Foundation awarding a $500,000 grant to the Joplin Recovery Fund. That funding will be included in a new housing grant cycle to be announced Jan. 12  by the Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri, Inc., the CFO’s largest affiliate.

“On May 22, we had a disaster that struck this community and we are part of this community,” said Ann Marie Campbell, president of Home Depot’s Southern Division. “As leaders and managers, there is no script to deal with that size of disaster. It continues to be one of the toughest things we’ve had to deal with as a company.

“That’s why we’re here today because of the spirit of this community that says there is hope; there is resiliency,” she said.

CFSWMO board members and CFO staff associate Michelle Ducre accepted the ceremonial check for $500,000 before store manager Steve Cope led the “ribboncutting” – actually powersawing a long board functioning as a ribbon.

“Wow, a half million to our community along with the commitment to come back,” Ducre said, in thanking Home Depot.

With flourishes including cheerleaders, a drum corps, a Color Guard, Home Depot leaders treated customers a a drop of hundreds of balloons filled with slips of paper to redeem for gifts, cupcakes, and grand re-opening sales throughout the store.

But the tragedy won’t stay far from the minds of employees and customers; at the store’s front entrance is a fountain and a stone marker “in remembrance of the lives lost, and to a future of rebuilding in their memory.”

Created in 1937, the Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment concentrates most of its grantmaking in its home state of Indiana, but it also has a long history of supporting relief efforts after other natural disasters.

“Watching the devastation wrought by the May 22 tornado that struck Joplin was wrenching and saddening,” said N. Clay Robbins, president of the Endowment. “The scars may never disappear, but homes can be rebuilt and quality of life restored. The Endowment is pleased to be able to help the community foundation in these efforts.”

The CFO, and its largest affiliate, the Joplin-based Community Foundation of Southwest Missouri, Inc., created the Joplin Recovery Fund on May 23 to focus on mid- to long-term recovery  through grantmaking to non-profit agencies, particularly in areas where philanthropy can address needs not covered through government funding or private resources.

The Lilly Endowment funds will initially be applied to an upcoming grant cycle that will focus specifically on developing affordable housing to help more tornado survivors return to permanent homes, CFSWMO Board President Lisa Knutzen said.

Full details of this grant cycle, including the total amount available, eligibility guidelines and application process, will be announced in January.

“We are very grateful to Lilly Endowment for its interest in Joplin and willingness to make this very generous grant to assist in the recovery,” CFO President Brian Fogle said.

“The lack of affordable housing has been described as the biggest unmet need for tornado survivors at this point,” he said. “It is our goal to create a pool of grant funding that can make a meaningful dent in that need. We understand that survivors cannot truly feel they are on their way toward recovery if they don’t have a permanent place where they can afford to live.”

This will be the second round of recovery grants made available by the generosity of donors to the Joplin Recovery Fund. In September, 18 non-profit sustainability grants totaling about $300,000 were awarded to help agencies that had been either directly affected by the tornado or are experiencing an increased caseload as a result of the storm. Details of those grants and other information about the CFSWMO/CFO’s Joplin work are available at: www.joplinrecoveryfund.org.

The Joplin Recovery Fund has received donations totaling more than $3 million. In all, donations of about $6.8 million have been made to the total 22 funds established at the CFSWMO/CFO for tornado relief efforts. The Joplin Recovery Fund is the only one directly administered by the CFSWMO/CFO; the others are administered by those who established the funds for their specific relief efforts.

Lilly Endowment is an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Gifts of stock in Eli Lilly and Company remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment, but it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the wishes of the founders, Lilly Endowment exists to support the causes of community development, education and religion. The Lilly family’s foremost priority was to help the people of their city and state build a better life. Although the Endowment also supports efforts of national significance and an occasional international project, it remains primarily committed to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.

In all, 23 of the CFO’s 44 affiliates participated in the Hunger Challenge, which leverages the total of $250,000 at a 10:1 ratio of buying, transporting and distributing food through the OFH network of feeding programs and pantries.

The Walmart State Giving Foundation awarded a $125,000 grant to Ozarks Food Harvest for a second challenge opportunity earlier this year after last year’s success with a $100,000 grant for the original Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge.

In this year’s Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge II, 25 food programs across the region worked with the 23 CFO affiliates to raise matching funds by the end of September.

Grant presentations, shown in the gallery below, have been made with affiliate and food program leaders in a number of the communities over the past month. The participating affiliates were: Aurora, Bolivar, Cassville, DACO, Dallas, Dent, El Dorado Springs, Finley River, Houston, Jacks Fork, Lockwood, Marshfield, Monett, Mount Vernon, Mountain Grove, Neosho, Nixa, Oregon County, Seymour, Stockton, Southwest Missouri, Taney County and West Plains.

“We appreciate the cooperative spirit between our affiliate foundations and their local food pantries to jointly tackle this matching grant opportunity,” CFO President Brian Fogle said.

This program began in response to a national report  – “Hunger in America 2010” – describing the extent to which hunger plagues Ozarks communities. An estimated 155,000 Ozarkers face chronic hunger issues, according to the report.

“We are grateful for the funding from the Walmart State Giving Program which allows us to leverage hunger relief support to our local Ozarks communities,” said Bart Brown, CEO at Ozarks Food Harvest.

“There’s a growing population of clients who are not eligible for government assistance such as WIC or the National School Lunch Program. This ‘gap’ truly relies on our member pantries and feeding sites to help feed their families,” Brown said. “The current child food insecurity rate is sobering. More than a quarter of our children — five percent higher than the national rate — now face hunger, or do not know where their next meal is coming from.”

Ozarks Food Harvest is the Feeding America food bank for southwest Missouri, serving more than 300 hunger relief organizations across 28 Ozarks counties in addition to long-term relief sites in Joplin. The Food Bank reaches 20,000 individuals weekly and distributes one million pounds of food monthly. OFH was named the 2011 Small Business of the Year by the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. Learn more at ozarksfoodharvest.org and at facebook.com/ozarksfoodharvest.

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks made the first awards in a new Metro Springfield grant round on Tuesday, Nov. 22, with $50,000 going to six agencies working on early childhood issues.

These grant awards are for programs that address the “red flags” related to early childhood issues identified in the Community Focus Report for Springfield-Greene County. Representatives from each of the six agencies will make brief remarks about the work they are doing to improve the health, safety and school readiness of young children in Springfield-Greene County.

The grants will be awarded to:

• Foundation for Springfield Public Schools: $8,500 to support a partnership between the Parents as Teachers program and the Springfield Chapter of the NAACP.
• Friends of Operation US: $5,000 for materials to provide expectant parents with foundational skills for childrearing.
• United Way of the Ozarks: $8,500 for materials to support the Downtown Family Circuit treks.
• Community Partnership of the Ozarks: $10,500 to implement a class-assessment tool to promote better teacher-child interactions.
• Lighthouse Child and Family Development Center: $8,750 to implement its resiliency project to improve social and emotional support for families with children from birth to age five.
• SafeHaven of the Ozarks: $8,750 for materials and space to provide counseling and life skills to children placed in foster care due to abuse or neglect.

“So many of the red-flag issues identified throughout the Community Focus report could be improved by giving our kids the best possible start in life and preparing them as well as possible to succeed in school,” CFO President Brian Fogle said. “We wanted to emphasize this with a specific grant round this year focused on early childhood development.”

For more information on the CFO’s grantmaking programs, visit: www.cfozarks.org/grants.

The Springfield-Greene County Park Board joined the Springfield Downtown Kiwanis Club to break ground today on a new playground at Jenny Lincoln Park that will offer accessible equipment for those with all levels of ability.

The Kiwanis Club conceived the idea of the accessible playground and partnered with the Park Board to locate it at the 9.3-acre park in downtown Springfield. The club raised $100,000 for construction of the park, which included a $10,000 matching grant from the CFO’s 2010 Metro Springfield Red-Flag Response grant cycle.

“This was a long journey and we worked hard to get here,” said Pat Dierking, President of the Downtown Kiwanis club. The group worked with the Southwest Center for Independent Living for guidance and resources to design the playground effectively for all abilities.

“It is another community-led initiative that makes this a community affair,” Greene County Associate Commissioner Harold Bengsch said. “That’s what our Parks system is known for.”

Park Board Chair Jerry Clark said the project is near and dear to her heart because her late husband was a Kiwanis member. She also credited Parks Director Jodie Adams, who celebrated the groundbreaking as one of her last official events before she retires after more than 30 years in the Parks system on Thursday.

MGACF board members and grant recipients at the banquet.

The Mountain Grove Area Community Foundation awarded $10,000 in grants to nine community groups at its first-ever Boot Scootin’ Benefit at the Downtown Event Center on Saturday, Nov. 5.

The Foundation has been re-invigorated in recent months with the addition of more board members who organized Saturday’s event, which included entertainment by the STARS Foundation band, and singer Jason Plummer; a chuck wagon style steak dinner, a silent auction and awards for the Biggest Buckle, Ugliest Boots and Best Hat.

Guest speaker Carol Silvey, the CFO’s senior associate for advancement, congratulated the Mountain Grove board on its renewed activity.

“Philanthropy is not about people giving millions of dollars,” she said. “It’s about a lot of people giving $10, $25, or $2. It all gets put into a big pot and adds up.”

These groups received the grant awards at the banquet:
• Make a Wish: $500 to support a local child with a life-threatening illness achieve his dream of a trip to Disney World.

• Mountain Grove Fire Department: $500 to help upgrade the existing storm siren system and add new sirens.

• Mountain Grove Police Department: $500 to help pay for software licenses to connect patrol cars to the records management system to give officers access to information while on patrol or responding to incidents.

• Grove Dairy Products: $500 toward a feasibility study and business plan for a processing plant.

• Downtown Association: $1,000 for maintenance costs of the Event Center and renovating its floor.

• YMCA Mountain Grove Branch: $1,000 to help renovate the front lobby, including winterizing the doors.

• Mountain Grove Central Arts Council: $2,000 to help renovate the upper floor of its historic building, which had previously been used as a juvenile detention center.

• STARS Foundation: $2,000 for rental costs for instruments and equipment for the program that teaches children ages 4-15 music in return for kids doing community service projects.

• Wright County Children’s Home: $2,000 to help purchase a new agency vehicle so employees don’t have to use their own cars instead of using the 15-passenger van for trips of just a couple of people.

The spots, which you’ll find below or at our Vimeo page, feature Pointer and Knutzen, respectively, and focus on two landmark occurrences to happen at CFO in the last year: Reaching $100 million in total distributions (Pointer) and the response to Joplin’s May 22 tornado. The Joplin spot will air on Joplin’s public television affiliate, KOZJ.

Give them a look, tell us what you think, and be sure to give the stations a look online at optv.org.

This competitive grant cycle was open to non-profit agencies providing services and programs directly tied to the red flags identified in the Community Focus Reports for Springfield-Greene County.

The CFO received nearly $240,000 in requests for the $125,000 available for the challenge grants, which were reviewed by a community grant panel. Each agency will have until Feb. 4, 2012 to raise at least the amount of the grant recommendation in order to receive the matching funds. The final grants will be awarded at a Feb. 15, 2012 reception at the CFO.

The agencies participating in the 2011-12 Community Response Challenge Grant cycle are:

• Big Brothers/Big Sisters: $7,100 for salaries, training materials and supplies to enhance children’s self-esteem through relationships with positive adult role models.
• CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates): $10,000 for volunteer training and recruitment to improve outcomes for children placed in the child-protective system.
• Child Advocacy Center: $8,800 to fund additional forensic interviewers, child advocates, technology and legal costs to help children who may be victims of abuse.
• Community Partnership of the Ozarks: $6,700 for expenses for facilitator training and evaluation tool development to promote resilient children and healthy families.
• Crosslines: $8,800 to purchase food for the food pantry.
• Connections Handyman Services: $8,800 for building materials, labor costs and material delivery to provide home repairs for low-income seniors and people with disabilities.
• Harmony House: $8,800 for materials and services for emergency shelter services.
• The Kitchen: $12,500 for salary costs for office supervision, patient, pharmacy and medical assistants at the medical clinic.
• Lighthouse Child and Family Development Center: $9,000 to support scholarships, a family coordinator, childcare and materials for intensive family case management services.
• Ozarks Food Harvest: $7,000 for food, materials and support for children’s weekend backpack programs.
• Ozarks Regional YMCA: $12,500 for staff, supplies, facility and school rental costs for quality after-school opportunities for families who cannot afford certified childcare services.
• Ronald McDonald House Tooth Truck: $12,500 for supplies for “pilot brushing” program to provide preventative dental services to at-risk children.
• The Victim Center: $12,500 for services, supplies and professional development to provide prevention education, crisis intervention, counseling and assistance to crime victims.

This is the third year the CFO has offered the competitive matching grants tied to the Community Focus Report, which released its 5th edition earlier this month. The CFO is a partner in producing the report, along with the United Way of the Ozarks, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, Springfield-Greene County Library District and the Junior League of Springfield, to develop a broad-based consensus on the community’s strengths and challenges.

“These challenge grants have successfully leveraged $1.15 million over the last two years to help our non-profit partners sustain strong existing programs that are working to mitigate poverty, strengthen families, support victims of domestic violence and help people gain access to health care,” CFO Board Chairman Cliff Brown said.

Individuals interested in supporting the programs selected for the Community Response Challenge grants can make donations either directly to the agency, or to the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Please note the name of the agency and “CRG Challenge” with your donation. Donations can be made online at: www.cfozarks.org/donate; the mailing address for the CFO is P.O. Box 8960, Springfield, MO, 65801.