At  a news conference on Friday, March 20^th at 2:00pm in the Gymnasium at the Boys and Girls Club at Burghard Elementary School, the Community Foundation of Central Georgia announced a new Neighborhood Grant Program, which will provide funding to grassroots neighborhood initiatives through existing organizations.  

The program will be piloted in three neighborhoods: (1) Village Green (Macon-Bibb), (2) East Macon / Walnut Creek (Macon-Bibb), and (3) Harrisburg (Milledgeville) beginning in June 2015.  We anticipate that the program will be expanded to include other neighborhoods in the future.  The pilot neighborhoods were selected because they already have an active group of citizens who are working together.

The eligible applicants for the Neighborhood Grant Program are nonprofit organizations, government entities (including schools) and neighborhood groups, defined as two or more people working together on a common project to improve the neighborhood. 

Priority will be given to projects that improve one of the following:

• Neighborhood pride (for example, branding and place identification projects),
• Neighborhood connection (for example, projects that bring neighbors together to get to know each other),
• Neighborhood beautification (for example, projects that make the public spaces look better and more welcoming, parks, greenspaces, blight mitigation),
• Arts (for example, public art, student-led art projects, music events),
• Education (for example, GED classes, after-school tutoring; Grants will not pay for individual students to participate),
• Health (for example, nutrition programs, seminars about the medical resources in the community), and
• Leadership development for residents (for example, leadership training workshops in neighborhood and volunteer management training)

The grant application deadlines will be June 30^th at 12:00pm (noon) and December 31^st at 12:00pm (noon) each year. 

There is not a maximum grant amount for this program, however there is a total of $30,000 available for the three neighborhoods in the June 2015 grant cycle.  Preference will be given to grant applicants who ask for a smaller amount of money while reaching a broader segment of the neighborhood. 

For more information or to apply for a grant from the Neighborhood Grant Program, please go to www.cfcga.org/neighborhoods.