By Jeff Robinson, President, Muncie City Council—
MUNCIE, Ind.—The September 30th deadline for local non-profits to apply for grant dollars earmarked to help those organizations and their clients who were hardest hit by COVID-19 is fast approaching. In total, $2 million of the City of Muncie’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding of $31.7 million was set aside specifically to help the nonprofit sector. Applications are available on the City’s website and must be submitted by September 30th, 2021.
Jeff Robinson, President of the City Council and District 2 Councilman, recruited a diverse committee representing non-profits, grantors, and local leaders to help inform how this grant process might work. He appointed 11 members and tapped Heart of Indiana United Way President & CEO Jenni Marsh to chair the committee. City Council’s attorney, Dan Gibson also attended meetings to advise and ensure the committee was within strict federal guidelines for the funding.
The committee landed on what the goals of the non-profit ARP dollars should be, then developed the process, the application, reviewers’ rubric, and grant report. All documents are currently available for review on the City of Muncie’s website.
To be eligible for funding, non-profits must be located within the City of Muncie, be a 501(C)3 in good standing, and must not discriminate based on age, race, sex, religion, national origin, disability, economic status, or sexual orientation. Those agencies with religious affiliation must not refuse services to a client based on religion or require attendance at religious services as a condition of assistance, nor will such groups engage in any religious proselytizing in any program receiving ARP funds.
“The committee and I have a goal to ensure every local non-profit knows their eligibility, understands the process, and is able to get any questions answered in a timely manner from a designated source. These dollars will provide a tremendous impact to our community, and we want to provide a completely transparent and informative process for those who have and will apply for funds.” Robinson explained.
The committee hosted two public information sessions, for more than 100 local non-profit executives and grant writers, which were live-streamed to Facebook and can be found at Jeff Robinson – Muncie City Council – District 2.
Before applying, those who were unable to attend the public information sessions are strongly encouraged to speak with United Way’s Director of Community Investments, Jim Flatford. He can be reached at jflatford@HeartOfIndiana.org and will help make sure applicants have important information as well as their questions answered.
“Time is running out for local non-profits to apply for this funding and Jim has been working hard to communicate and answer questions from those who have reached out. With the deadline of September 30th quickly approaching, I would encourage those who have not reached out to please do so with any questions they have about the process and get those applications in before the deadline.” Robinson said.
