Annual Good Grant Award - Donors Forum of Wisconsin

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2011 Application

History of the Wisconsin Good Grant Award

Wisconsin Good Grant Award

Each year the Donors Forum of Wisconsin invites you to submit nominees for its annual Good Grant Award. The award honors funders and grantees that have demonstrated leadership through a creative partnership by working together for the greater good.

For over thirty years, the Donors Forum of Wisconsin has been an advocate and promoter of innovative efforts between funders and grantees to improve the lives of our citizens. Funders as well as nonprofits have the common goal of contributing to a stronger community. The Forum celebrates this commitment with the presentation of its Wisconsin Good Grant Award each year at the Statewide Conference on Philanthropy held in the spring.

This year's application deadline is July 15, 2009, with award notification on or before August 7, 2009. Please click the document to the left to download the application or contact Emmy Hall for additional information.

History of the Good Grant Award

2001

The Good Grant Award was presented to Adams County’s Department of Health and Social Services and the County’s University of Wisconsin’s Extension

Funder: Richard Holt, Director, Adams County Health and Social Services

Grantee: Eddie Felts-Podoll, Adams County University Extension

Nominator: Steve Lavalle, Superintendent, Adams Friendship Area Schools

Waste Not/Want Not Project: The project receives food from farmers and producers that normally would go to waste, Master Processors taught families to freeze and can the food, and then volunteers distribute it to low-income families through the food pantries in the county.

The Good Grant Award was presented to the Ziemann Foundation, Inc. and Special Olympics Wisconsin, Inc..

Funder: Cynthia L. Linnan, Vice President, Ziemann Foundation, Inc.

Grantee: Special Olympics Wisconsin, Inc.

Nominator: Pat Gottfried, Chief Development Officer, Special Olympics Wisconsin, Inc.

The Healthy Athletes Program: This program was developed to bring needed healthcare and education to a section of the population that often is neglected. Funding the first-ever Healthy Athletes Program at the Special Olympics Wisconsin (SOWI) State Summer Games allowed a large segment of people with cognitive disabilities from Southeastern Wisconsin, who make up a large portion of Summer Games athletes, to receive health screenings and referrals at no cost, therefore improving the quality of life for hundreds of citizens with cognitive disabilities.

2003

The Good Grant Award was presented to S.C. Johnson Fund and Wisconsin Foundation for Independent Colleges.

Funder: Brian L. Anderson, Program Manager/ Community Development, S.C. Johnson Fund

Grantee: David C. Wolfson, CFRE, Vice President, Wisconsin Foundation for Independent Colleges, Inc. (WFIC)

Nominator: David C. Wolfson, CFRE, Vice President, Wisconsin Foundation for Independent Colleges, Inc. (WFIC)

Community Involvement Awards for Neighborhood Sustainability: This Award was created by the SC Johnson Fund in order to invest in the health, vigor, and future of the Racine community. Bringing the expertise and resources of the Wisconsin Foundation for Independent Colleges, Inc. and the 20 private colleges to revitalize Racine neighborhoods is the program’s primary focus. In particular, the SC Johnson Fund asked if the colleges could help a local nonprofit organization called Sustainable Racine reach major goals in neighborhood development.

2004
Funder: John Taylor, Director, The Clay-Price Fund
Grantee: The Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools
Individual School Endowment Initiative:
Through John Taylor’s extraordinary challenge gift to create the Individual School Endowment Initiative, which is unique to this country, the Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools has been able to engage a broad base of community support to create endowments in 33 of the 46 public schools in Madison. The funds are used to support and encourage creative and innovative projects throughout the school district.
2005
The Good Grant Award was presented to Easter Seals Wisconsin and the Department of Workforce Development, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Funder: Charlene L. Dwyer, Administrator, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, Department of Workforce Development
Grantee: Paul Leverenz, Vice President, FARM and Vocational Services, Easter Seals Wisconsin
Nominator: Mark Purschwitz, Ph.D., Research Engineer/ Agricultural Safety, National Farm Medicine Center
Easter Seals Wisconsin developed a method to reach, gain the trust of, and serve rural farmers who have eluded the medical and rehabilitation communities. In 2002, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation made a multi-year grant to Easter Seals Wisconsin. This grant allowed for 16 regional, on-farm training sessions to be conducted for a minimum of 200 DVR front line counselors statewide. These training sessions helped counselors understand the many ways in which farmers with disabilities can be accommodated to continue farming, as well as understanding the economics, business and culture of farming.
2006
The Good Grant Award was presented to The Milwaukee Environmental Consortium and a coalition of funders: Argosy Foundation, Brico Fund LLC, Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, and the Nonprofit Management Fund.

Funders: Argosy Foundation, Brico Fund LLC, Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Nonprofit Management Fund

Grantee: The Milwaukee Environmental Consortium

Nominator: Kimberly Gleffe, Executive Director, River Revitalization Foundation

The Milwaukee Environmental Consortium, a collective of twelve Milwaukee-area nonprofit organizations, and the funders collaborated to achieve results beyond what any single organization could accomplish. The purpose of the MEC is to foster collaborations and leadership within Milwaukee's environmental community, as well as to gain efficiencies of scale that can be attained by the combined efforts of multiple groupes. Working together, both through shared office space and through collaborative efforts, the participating organizations will be able to increase their collective impact upon the citizens and the environment of Milwaukee.

INSPIRATION AWARD

Newly created in 2006, the Inspiration Award was presented to Independent Living, Inc., Mounds Pet Food Warehouse and the Dane County Humane Society. The Inspiration Award was created in 2006 to recognize heartfelt philanthropy that will inspire others to emulate the example.

The 2006 award honors the partnership among two nonprofits and a corporation. Independent Living, Inc. runs Meals on Wheels in the Madison area, and they discovered that elderly clients were sharing their own food with their animal companions, since they were unable to purchase pet food. Independent Living, Inc. then partnered with the Humane Society and Mounds Pet Food Warehouse to supply Pet Meals on Wheels for these animals, so that no one would have to choose between feeding themselves or their pets.
2007
The Good Grant Award was presented to Perinatal Foundation and the Madison Junior Woman's Club for the grant project titled Madre, Hay Esparanza.
Madre, Hay Esperanza is a Spanish-language media campaign designed to raise awareness about post-partum depression -- a common but treatable illness -- among members of Madison/Dane County's Latino community. Madre, Hay Esperanza broke the mold of how public awareness campaigns for specific populations are usually created and organized. Rather than adapting a canned program for a specific population Madre, Hay Esperanza partners took a different approach and created the campaign from the "inside out." Post-partum depression experts and those providing funding for the campaign stepped back and let Latino community leaders take the helm and guide the creative and implementation processes. The result of this innovative approach is a campaign that the Latino community has rallied around and perpetuated, and one that reflects its heart. What started as a discrete project with a limited budget funded by the Madison Junior Woman's Club has grown beyond the original expectations of all involved.
2008
The Good Grant Award was presented to Justice 2000 for the grant project titled Center for Driver's License Recovery and Employability program.
Justice 2000 established the Center for Driver's License Recovery and Empolyability program in March 2007 to increase the number of licensed drivers among Milwaukee County's low-income residents, increasing their ability to find and retain family-supporting jobs. Each grantor has supported this critical mission because of its necessity to connect low-income job seekers to employment; it is currently the first program of its kind in the country. The grantors of this project include: The City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin Departments of Transportation and Workforce Development, Helen Bader Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation, and Patrick and Anna M. Cudahy Fund.
2009

The Good Grant award of 2009 was presented to the Crisis Resource Center in Milwaukee.

The Crisis Resource Center (CRC) was created in 2007 with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of individuals with mental illness who, during a psychiatric crisis, end up in the criminal justice system, local hospital emergency rooms or subject to involuntary psychiatric detention. It is a 24/7 community-based, recovery driven, voluntary, psychiatric crisis treatment center. The CRC offers short-term stabilization services and focuses on connecting or reconnecting individuals experiencing a psychiatric crisis to existing community services. The Crisis Resource Center requires a broad-based, system wide partnership of individuals and agencies dedicated to helping individuals with mental illness.

The CRC is the result of a collaboration among local nonprofit organizations, Milwaukee County and Milwaukee Police Department who banded together to create a more efficacious, cost-effective approach to mental health crisis intervention and treatment. A CRC Advisory Committee was developed to begin seeking funds for the project and Transitional Living Services (TLS) became the fiscal agent. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation emerged with a $500,000 grant that required a local match which local foundations rallied to support. Over the past two years, the CRC has developed into a successful and sustainable program within TLS and its affiliated partner, the Milwaukee Center for Independence (MCFI).
2010

The recipient of the Good Grant award in 2010 was the Coulee Community Land Trust (CCLT), a program of the Coulee Housing Development Corporation, administered by Couleecap, Inc.

The Coulee Community Land Trust was formed in 2008 by a group of community leaders and area nonprofits concerned about the lack of affordable housing in La Crosse County and the surrounding area. Following a needs assessment the La Crosse County Housing Commission determined a community land trust needed to be created. The initial effort was funded with a seed grant of $11,000 from the Franciscan Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration, which has since generated more than $2.5 million in residential developments and created 16 units of permanently affordable homeownership housing.

The power of the CCLT came from employing a "shared-appreciation" model. A home is constructed or acquired by the CCLT. The CCLT then sells the house to a qualified household while the land trust retains ownership of the underlying land. When the home-buyer purchases the home, they enter into a "shared-appreciation agreement" with the CCLT limiting the amount of appreciation the home-buyer receives when the home-buyer sells their house. The agreement allows the home-buyer to access the subsidy and housing market and the CCLT control of the price of the home at resale allowing the home to be affordable to another low-income household. At resale the home-buyer still receives a share of the appreciation and the remainder is kept with the property making the home affordable to the next home-buyer.

The Good Grant Award was presented to the Foundation for Madison’s Public Schools and The Clay-Price Fund.

2002