Deadline approaching for second round of Community Partner Grants

August 24, 2023 · 0 Comments

If you’re community organization or individual serving Aurora in the fields of culture or recreation and looking to get an event or initiative off the ground, support from Town Hall could only be an application away.

The second round of Aurora’s Community Partnership Grant program is now underway.

Through to September 1, the Town is accepting applications from applicable groups or individuals seeking “temporary funding to assist in the implementation of culture or recreation-based initiatives, build organizational capacity, benefit the community, and support the Town’s Strategic Plan.”

The grant program will offer up to $10,000 to eligible organizations and individuals.

“When you’re developing a program like this, there is a lot to consider,” says Lisa Warth, Manager of Recreation for the Town of Aurora. “Council wanted to keep it local to support local individuals and organizations, and organizations that are Regional but serve a good proportion of Aurora residents. Our first intake, which was back in April, we saw a good variety of applications from a number of cultural organizations that either wanted to put on special events, wanted to provide some enhanced programming or training to staff or volunteers and we saw some applications that were just general community events and were made to raise awareness for the organization.

“Our hope is when we support programs like that people participate and they become aware of the organization and potentially join the organization. That helps them build capacity.

“We had a couple of smaller organizations wanting to expand activities for memberships, just as it relates to recreation and culture, because that’s the main mandate for this grant. We’re not necessarily supporting greater social service-type organizations, although that work is crucial and important because the pool of funding is limited for this grant, but because it had always traditionally been for recreation and culture, we decided we were going to continue focusing on the recreation and culture in the organization.”

Through the application process, interested parties need to show how a grant to them or their organization “not only helps the individual organization build capacity and serve the Aurora community, but ideally it will help support the corporate strategic plan, and helps the Town, as a corporation, achieve some of its goals as well,” says Warth.

“We want to make sure the organizations that are out there are aware and eligible of the programs. We’re looking to see that they match the corporate strategic plan and we’re helping the organization meet some of their goals and our hope is they will strengthen the Aurora community as a whole,” she says. “We call it a partnership grant because we see it as a partnership with the organizations that are applying. We’re working together to help meet the needs and demands of our community; we’re looking at the diversity and the types of organizations and the types of events and services organizations are applying for to help meet that demand.

“If people are unsure if they are eligible, email us. We really try to make the application process simple and straightforward. We don’t want to make it complicated or cumbersome or time consuming for these organizations. Although we kept the application process simple, we really encourage them to read the application on the website and include everything we’re asking for. We’re asking for a simple financial statement, a link to how they see the project linking to the strategic plan, and you can easily find that on the website in the grant section.”

For more information on the grant process, including applications, visit www.aurora.ca/en/town-services/community-partnership-grant.aspx. If you have any questions, they can be directed to grants@aurora.ca.

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter