Community Impact Grants: Focusing on Nonprofit Resilience in Wisconsin

The Oshkosh Area Community Foundation is seeking applications for its Community Impact Program to help nonprofits sharpen their strategies for sustainability focused on people, revenue, mission and operations, and leveraging technology and data.

Donor Name: Oshkosh Area Community Foundation

State: Wisconsin

Counties: Winnebago County (WI), Waushara County (WI), Green Lake County (WI)

City: Ripon

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline (mm/dd/yyyy): 12/01/2021

Size of the Grant: $5,000

Details:

The program will focus on Nonprofit Resilience including support to:

• Achieve your fundraising goals by efficiently using your time and existing resources, including board members and other volunteers.
• Migrate business operations to the cloud, move to a virtual phone system, or leverage technology to improve efficiency and quality of services.
• Analyze current performance of your website and social media efforts along with the opportunity to implement recommendations.

Grant Information

Grant awards typically no more than $5,000.

Nonprofit Resilience Priorities

Applicants may select ONE of the following priority areas:

• Fundraising – Support to achieve your fundraising goals by efficiently using your time and existing resources, including board members and other volunteers.
  • Organizations can apply to have two individuals (staff and/or board members) build skills by participating in the No More Duct Tape Fundraising School. During this 6-month virtual learning program, which will start in January 2022, participants will have the support of fundraising experts to create or refine their:
    • Online fundraising technology plan
    • Case for support to inspire donors/foundations to give
    • Monthly giving program to raise recurring gifts
    • Board engagement plan to get board members fundraising
    • Virtual event/peer to peer fundraising project to raise $10k
    • 12-month fundraising plan.
• Technology – Support to migrate business operations to the cloud, move to a virtual phone system, or leverage technology to improve efficiency and quality of services. Examples include:
  • Assessing your organization’s current technology use to support its mission and operations
  • Guiding staff in making technology purchasing decisions
  • Moving your organization’s email and files to Microsoft 365
  • Switching to a VoIP phone system for increased flexibility and lower costs
  • Modifying or upgrading technology systems to serve clients remotely
  • Covering fees for specialized software to support key operations.
• Digital Marketing – Through a partnership with UW Oshkosh, organizations will receive a website and social media audit by a team of junior and senior level students in spring 2022 along with the opportunity to engage students in summer projects to implement recommendations. The audit will include:
  • Checking current performance and health of your website and providing suggestions on how to improve specific areas
  • Offering key insights on sources of traffic to your website, types of people desirable, their attributes, and their behaviors
  • Conducting measurements of Google search volume and competitive levels for specific keywords and recommendations for ones that are most relevant to your nonprofit to increase traffic
  • Analyzing current performance of your social media efforts and identifying opportunities to improve your social profiles and content mix.

Geographic Scope

Winnebago County, Waushara County, Green Lake County, or the city of Ripon.

What They Do Not Fund

• Rent, lost revenue or staff salaries
• Annual fund drives, fundraising events or endowment-building campaigns
• Debt reduction or retirement
• Religious organizations for sacramental or theological purposes
• Political or lobbying activities
• Full cost of any project

For more information, visit Community Impact Grants.