Local nonprofits will be given $850,000 by Cobb County during the next budget year which runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2019. The Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 on Sept. 25 in favor with Commissioners JoAnn Birrell and Bob Ott opposed.
While supporting a round-up program for nonprofits through utility bills, Birrell said she does not support county funding of nonprofit organizations.
As she has done during many meetings over recent years, Commissioner Lisa Cupid expressed her concerns that the same organizations are given this funding each year without including new ones and without including more of those groups serving District 4 which she represents in South Cobb.
Commission Chairman Mike Boyce said funding for nonprofit organizations will not be recommended by him for the Fiscal Year 2020 budget and beyond since he finds “a great deal of reluctance to continue funding under the current structure” by the commissioners.
They use four priorities for this funding: homelessness, family stability/poverty, ex-offender re-entry/workforce development and health and wellness.
For Fiscal Year 2019-2020 funding, the Cobb Community Collaborative, which develops and oversees this nonprofit grant review and allocation process on behalf of the commissioners, received 27 applications totaling $1.8 million in requests.
Five applications were found ineligible, leaving 22 applications (9 new, 13 current grantees) with requests totaling $1.58 million to be evaluated and scored by the review team.
The collaborative recommended funding of $850,000 for 15 nonprofits, including $42,500 for the collaborative.
Those 15 organizations are Atlanta Community Food Bank, Atlanta Legal Aid, Boys & Girls Club, Cobb Healthy Futures Foundation, Communities in Schools, Davis Direction Foundation, Food Security for America, HOPE Atlanta/Travelers Aid of Metro Atlanta, Kidz2Leaders, Marietta YELLS, MUST Ministries, Safepath Children’s Advocacy Center Inc., The Center for Family Resources, The Extension Inc. and Tommy Nobis Center.
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