DuPage County has committed $10.6 million in federal pandemic aid to establish a nonprofit grant program that will be managed by a Downers Grove-based foundation and focus on addressing food and housing insecurity, mental health and substance use issues.
County board members have approved an agreement with the DuPage Foundation to develop the grant initiative with an influx of funds provided by the American Rescue Plan.
A planning committee of county and foundation officials will decide how to distribute the money, but they are looking to move beyond emergency measures.
"Both the county and the foundation want to be strategic in using these funds versus just deploying them," said Barb Szczepaniak, the foundation's vice president for programs.
In pre-pandemic years, the county's annual budget usually set aside around $1 million for the Human Services Grant Fund, a pool of money divvied up among dozens of food pantries, homeless shelters, counseling centers and other nonprofit agencies.
"We knew we could do more for people if we could leverage the giving power of community partners," county board Chairman Dan Cronin said in a statement. "We also knew that while yearlong grants helped nonprofit organizations, larger, multiyear grants could create measurable, lasting change."
The county will lean on the expertise of the DuPage Foundation to make grants available to local social service providers that support residents most severely hurt by the pandemic.
"Our hope is that nonprofit organizations will work with DuPage residents to stabilize their crisis situations and then work toward longer-term goals," Cronin said. "The vision for this approach is to provide a stable foundation to grow a public/private partnership that sustains this effort without relying on an annual allocation from the county budget."
The county will deliver the funds to the foundation in one lump sum. The foundation will award $10 million in grants to nonprofits over five years, while $600,000 of the total sum it receives from the county will pay for the costs to administer the program. The foundation also will gather information from each grant recipient for a county spending report on projects funded by the American Rescue Plan.
"This is above and beyond what we're doing already, so we will need to add some staff over the next five years for this," Szczepaniak said.
County Board member Julie Renehan will be part of the group defining the parameters of the grant funding. As an example, grants could help organizations hire staff to increase the availability of counseling services or expand hours of a food pantry, Renehan said.
"As we develop the application process and then consider applications, we look to the nonprofit organizations to provide specific ideas about how best to address these issues because their experiences and perspectives are valuable," said Renehan, chairwoman of the county's health and human services committee.
There will likely be some kind of cap on individual grants.
"But as we are looking to make a significant impact with these grants, the cap will be higher than programs we have funded in the past," said Mary Keating, director of the county's community services department.
Keating said officials expect the grant program to launch during the spring.
DuPage County was allotted $179,266,585 under the American Rescue Plan relief package. The county received $89.6 million, the first of two equal installments, in May 2021. The American Rescue Plan money must be spent by the end of 2026.
"It is an opportunity of a lifetime," Szczepaniak said, "and we are very focused on making the best use of that."
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February 06, 2022 at 06:16AM
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County awards $10.6 million for DuPage Foundation to make 'lasting change' through grant program - Chicago Daily Herald
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