Chaffee County Community Foundation is excited to commence 2021 Municipal Community Grants in partnership with the Town of Buena Vista and the City of Salida!

We are thrilled to say that we will be having a SINGLE APPLICATION and review process for both BV and Salida – so if you serve both communities, you’ll be able to make a single application. If you only serve one community, this single application is for you as well.

Each Salida and Buena Vista have dedicated $40,000 to the community grant program for 2021! This brings our total program budget to $80,000 – a 30% increase over the 2020 community grants budgets!

TIMELINE

  • Applications open Tuesday, January 19th here (you can create/update your user & organization profiles ahead of time!).
  • Application deadline is Thursday, February 18th at 5pm.
  • Reviews, site visits (remote), and decisions will be conducted until on or around March 19th.
  • Recommendations for funding will be submitted for approval to each municipality’s elected boards in early April.
  • Approved grants will be paid within 10 business days of a complete grant agreement.

PROCESS

CCCF has convened an 11-member Grant Review Committee comprised of both BV and Salida community members, CCCF board members, and representatives from the two elected boards.

All applications will follow this process:

  1. Initial staff screening to ensure completeness, CO Secretary of State Good Standing, and review of financials.
  2. Individual committee member review and ranking.
  3. Applications which receive 50% combined average rank or higher will be contacted for a ‘site visit’ to discuss any questions that came up during the reviews. These site visits will be done remotely.
  4. Review committee convenes a final work session to aggregate site visit information, rank, and other considerations such as program budget to make final funding recommendations and rationale.
  5. Grant recommendations will be submitted to the two elected boards for approval/modification.
  6. All approved grants, upon the completion of a grant agreement, will receive funds via direct deposit.

ELIGIBILITY & REQUIREMENTS

Any 501c3 organization (or project under the fiscal sponsorship of a 501c3) in good standing serving either (or both!) Buena Vista or Salida residents is eligible to apply for funding. While there is no maximum award, grant awards average $2,800 for programs serving a single municipality.

Applications that demonstrate the following factors will be most competitive:

  • Clearly defined and measurable outcomes, outputs, and impacts for proposed programs and projects
  • Projects, programs, or organizations that serve basic needs (food, housing, health)
  • Projects, programs, or organizations that serve populations with special needs

Any organization that received funding from either municipality in 2020 is required to submit a Colorado Common Grant Report either prior or with their 2021 application. Organizations who fail to do this will not be considered for funding.