Yellow Pages
The Skagit Community Foundation is one of a dozen nonprofits in the state that will receive funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to benefit local families hardest hit by the recession, it was announced Thursday.
The Gates Foundation has chosen local nonprofits as its avenue for directing funds to the most immediate and unique needs of each community, a press release said.
As an umbrella organization for nonprofits in the county, Skagit Community will disperse the $30,000 it receives to groups that meet an array of needs for residents, the foundation’s president John G. White said.
“We’re really the eyes and ears for that money, and we’ll provide the funds and due diligence necessary to make sure the funds are being spent correctly,” White said.
Skagit Community was originally founded in 1992 by Dorothy and Burl Ives — the Academy Award-winning actor and recording artist who eventually settled in Anacortes — to build a performing arts center in Skagit County.
After the performing arts center idea flopped, the founders broadened the foundation’s focus to benefit nearly every aspect of community life — from health and wellness to the environment, White said.
Skagit Community is one of 10 community groups in counties across the state that will receive a portion of the $672,000 intended for local residents.
The Whatcom Community Foundation will receive $75,000, and $30,000 will go to the Orcas Island Community Foundation, the release said.
Along with larger grants to the Washington State Library and Legal Aid for Washington Fund, the Gates Foundation issued more than $4 million of new funds in its initiative to aid Washington’s most vulnerable families.
“The recession has affected thousands of families in our state, and many need a hand as they work toward economic recovery and stability,” Gates Foundation Co-Chair Bill Gates said in the release.
The funds are intended to bridge the gap between what nonprofits typically rely on receiving from government grants and what they have received during the recession, White said.
“The Gates Foundation realized there was a need to help the nonprofit organizations do some of their good works (because of) the recession and the downturn in funds and contributions,” he said.
Skagit Community Foundation gave away $250,000 in grants to area nonprofits last year and has received about $1 million in donations and grants since its creation, he said.
