The Henderson County Fiscal Court approved funding recommendations for local nonprofits at a special called meeting Thursday afternoon. (See approved funding list at the bottom of this article)
The funding, which was compiled by a 12-person committee made up of community members and county government officials, totals $117,000.
The amount budgeted in the county government budget for nonprofits on its Local Government Economic Assistance allocations page is $150,000. But $7,500 of that was earmarked to go to the United Way, which for the first year worked as a facilitator for the court’s funding to local nonprofit organizations.
That leaves $25,500 for the court to decide how to spend. That money will allow the court to make adjustments to the allocations, said Jack Brewer, who chaired the committee that compiled the recommended funding.
Brewer said the recommended awards were intended for organizations requesting funding of projects supporting the community. Organizations that requested funding to pay for operational costs, such as paying utilities, were not granted, he said.
Other organizations, such as The Gathering Place, Involvement, Inc. and the Henderson Homeless Coalition, weren’t approved for LGEA funding because they will get funding from other county government sources, officials said.
Brewer said the county government’s funding only covered about half of what local organizations requested.
The approved funding will now be plugged into the county government’s $36 million-plus budget, which is scheduled to receive a first reading at Tuesday’s 9:30 a.m. Fiscal Court meeting.
The Fiscal Court earlier this year approved a plan in which 12 community members would form a committee to determine funding allocations for local nonprofit organizations. The organizations would need to apply though a United Way portal found on the UW website.
On the committee from county government were magistrates Bill Stephens Stark and Taylor Tompkins and Fiscal Court Clerk Kurt Wiesen.
Henderson County Judge-Executive Brad Schneider has said that he believes this method of awarding nonprofits would be more efficient and provide a level of transparency.
The city of Henderson is also distributing funding to local nonprofits through the same process.
Below is a list of the approved allocations.
