The Black Belt Community Foundation (BBCF) is celebrating several months of hard work in completing two concurrent granting cycles with its 2019 First Round of Community Grants for 11 Black Belt counties and its first 2019 Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT) Selma grants for Selma and Dallas County. The Total pool of funding for Community Grants is approximately $75,000 funded across 54 different community organizations, and for the TRHT grants, approximately $24,000 in funding is being awarded to six different organizations based in Dallas County. This represents 84% of applications being funded from a total of 64 applications for community grants and 55% of applications being funded from a total of 11 applications for TRHT Selma/Dallas County grants.
This community granting cycle involved the full participation of BBCF’s large network of volunteer community associates active across its 12 county service area of the Alabama Black Belt. A key component of community granting is the ‘participatory granting’ process where communities start their own fundraising locally that are matched with funds from BBCF to create a greater collective impact in funding community enriching work across each county.
BBCF President Felecia Lucky states,”’Impressive’ is the word I have in reference to all of our grant applicants, awardees and the amazing team of our community associates and TRHT Selma grants committee and partners in engaging the community for this process. To be able to award nearly $100,000 in vital funding to 60 different organizations engaging in community transformative work is truly a blessing!”
The TRHT Selma granting cycle involved a three-month long grants application process starting in April that included four public grant seekers workshops in Dallas County and two racial equity workshops held in Selma. Of note, BBCF’s TRHT Selma place partner, The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth & Reconciliation produced and conducted all of the racial equity workshops that were required for applicants alongside of attendance at a workshop.
All grant recipients were announced and celebrated at BBCF’s joint Community Grants/TRHT Grants Awards Ceremony held at Wallace Community College in Selma on Sat. June 29th in the Hank Sanders Technology Center Conference Room (11AM start).
Specific details on the names of the grant recipient organizations and the type of work that will be funded is presented with photos above.