How a Community Grants Program Pivoted to Address Local Needs During the Pandemic

As the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic cre­at­ed a lot of new, press­ing needs for Bal­ti­more res­i­dents, Fusion Part­ner­ships, a city non­prof­it, felt that it need­ed to change the approach of its inFu­sion Com­mu­ni­ty Grants pro­gram — which typ­i­cal­ly funds res­i­dent-led projects in three neigh­bor­hoods on the city’s east side.

So, the orga­ni­za­tion, which is fund­ed in part by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion, trans­formed the mis­sion of its small grants com­mit­tee that typ­i­cal­ly selects local grantees. Instead of review­ing grant appli­ca­tions, the com­mit­tee — which is made up of sev­er­al res­i­dents from the three east-side neigh­bor­hoods: C.A.R.E., McElder­ry Park and Mid­dle East — would iden­ti­fy needs in their com­mu­ni­ties spurred by the coro­n­avirus out­break and fund projects to help address them.

“The small grants com­mit­tee knew 2020 required some­thing dif­fer­ent,” says Alli­son Dug­gan, who man­ages the com­mu­ni­ty grants pro­gram for Fusion Part­ner­ships. ​“So, it decid­ed to use its col­lec­tive ties to neigh­bor­hoods to iden­ti­fy, and then help address, some of the top con­cerns we were hear­ing from our neigh­bors. We expect the small grants com­mit­tee will con­tin­ue to make sim­i­lar invest­ments in 2021.”

Below are some of the efforts the small grants com­mit­tee fund­ed, start­ing in spring of 2020:

• Short­ly after the coro­n­avirus out­break began, the com­mit­tee moved quick­ly to pro­vide as many res­i­dents as pos­si­ble with clean­ing and hygiene prod­ucts, such as soap, wipes and dis­in­fec­tant sprays. Many com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers had lost wages because of the out­break and were strug­gling to afford and access such items. The com­mit­tee con­tin­ued these dis­tri­b­u­tions in the sum­mer and fall — pro­vid­ing 800 pack­ages of clean­ing and hygiene prod­ucts to res­i­dents at four local events.
• The com­mit­tee also pro­vid­ed small grants to four local ele­men­tary and mid­dle schools meant to sup­port efforts to help stu­dents as they learned remote­ly. This includ­ed sup­port for school pro­grams meant to help stu­dents pur­chase books, note­books and oth­er learn­ing mate­ri­als; boost enroll­ment in tutor­ing ses­sions; and offer stu­dents prizes, such as small toys or books, as incen­tives for reg­u­lar atten­dance in online classes.
• Last Octo­ber, the com­mit­tee fund­ed and host­ed a work­shop for com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dents on how to reg­is­ter to vote and fill out the 2020 Cen­sus form. Near­ly 15 peo­ple reg­is­tered to vote at the out­door gath­er­ing (which adhered to mask-wear­ing and social-dis­tanc­ing guide­lines) and sev­er­al filled out their Cen­sus forms, too. At anoth­er Octo­ber work­shop, more than a dozen peo­ple learned how to nav­i­gate Maryland’s unem­ploy­ment ben­e­fits web­site and were giv­en advice on how to find and apply for jobs online.

“As a com­mit­tee of res­i­dents, we under­stand what peo­ple need on the ground,” says Don­ald Gre­sham, a Mid­dle East res­i­dent who is a mem­ber of the small grants com­mit­tee. ​“We also know where some of the gaps are in terms of sup­port and have based our rec­om­men­da­tions and fund­ing deci­sions around that knowledge.”

Sup­port­ing res­i­dent-led efforts

Dug­gan says that it’s impor­tant that non­prof­its sup­port­ing com­mu­ni­ty response efforts trust res­i­dents to under­stand their neigh­bor­hoods’ needs and view local peo­ple as key advi­sors in iden­ti­fy­ing projects and ini­tia­tives to fund. Res­i­dent-led efforts also require guid­ance and admin­is­tra­tive sup­port for man­ag­ing bud­gets, order­ing sup­plies, exe­cut­ing projects and sched­ul­ing meet­ings and events — sup­port that Fusion pro­vid­ed to the small grants com­mit­tee and that oth­er local non­prof­its can offer to sim­i­lar efforts.

“We’re so pleased to see the many cre­ative ways com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers in East Bal­ti­more have worked to address con­cerns aris­ing from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic,” says Bur­gun­di Alli­son, a pro­gram asso­ciate with the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“We hope that key stake­hold­ers in Bal­ti­more and else­where see this and rec­og­nize that local res­i­dents are key to under­stand­ing and address­ing com­mu­ni­ty needs.”