Greater Cincinnati Foundation
720 East Pete Rose Way, Suite 120
Cincinnati, OH 45202
Mini-Grants for Kids
Greater Cincinnati Foundation’s Mini-Grants for Kids Programs consist of the Summertime Kids and Learning Links grants. These grants serve schools and nonprofits in our 8 county region.The Summertime Kids program provides nonprofits funding for summer programs for children and youth ages birth-18. Funded programs provide supervised activities and programs that are enriching, fun and promote learning during the summer months.
The Learning Links program provides small grants to educators from K-12 schools for projects that do not have funding through the regular school budget. Funded programs include creative, interesting, educational projects or events they would like to bring to their school or classroom.
Program Goals:
- Provide funding to K-12 teachers who would otherwise not have been able to bring particular projects/events/programs to their classroom or schools.
- Provide funding for organizations to offer fun summer programming for children, to reduce learning loss and ensure children have safe environments when out of school.
- Impact children from schools across our eight-county region of service
- Engage current and prospective donors with grant reviewal process
Program Results:
Between both the Learning Links and Summertime Kids grant cycles (collectively known as our "Mini-Grants for Kids"), GCF funded over 300 unique projects and programs - from field trips to project-based learning, from expanding playground access to supporting children's mental and behavioral health needs at schools. To do this, GCF engaged with 55 donors who volunteered on committees that reviewed grant applications. See attached "Impact Summary" Report for a few examples of the types of project that were funded this year: a vital year for the thousands of children and youth impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in Greater Cincinnati. Projects funded by the Mini-Grants for Kids, thanks to the generous support of the Dater Foundation, have provided vital engaging activities for our region's students. Additionally, we received a record number of applications from the community for both our Summertime Kids grant cycle, and our Learning Links grant cycles!
The Mini-Grants for Kids this year was an overall great success; but as with every program, always has room for improvement! We are working hard to continue marketing these opportunities to hard-to-reach rural communities, especially as we continue in our post-pandemic world. In addition, we will be slightly increasing the size of the grant awarded, to account for inflation as well as organizations' and schools' post-pandemic needs. We will of course only be doing this by a marginal amount at first and continuing to glean feedback from both donors who review applications, as well as the grant recipients themselves to ensure a stronger impact.
Website:
http://www.gcfdn.org Amount: $250,000
Date: December 2022
