The Park City Community Foundation handed out thousands of dollars in grants at a ceremony last week. The funding went to 38 local non-profits, including KPCW.
The program director for the foundation, Ollie Wilder, said they handed out over $177,000 last week, the largest amount in their history.
KPCW was one of the non-profits which received a multi-year grant.
"We decided a couple of years ago that there were some organizations that we were so consistently supporting and that just seemed like the fabric of the community and we wanted to keep supporting them. Let’s make everybody’s life easier and make you not have to apply every single year and make us not have to review an application each year. We still do site visits each year though. We come hang out with the folks here at KPCW and that the other organizations and say ‘how’s it going? Are things on track’”
Wilder said that next year, they believe they will have more funding to hand out. He said the prospects are good for the non-profits that apply.
“This year we had 49 applicants and actually 38 of those got grants so the odds ain’t bad. We hope we have at least as many applicants again next year, we also hope to be able to increase the amount we give. This year we only had a core budget of $120,000 for this grant program. We started last year inviting our donor advised fund holders and a few other donors to consider coming in with us on some of these grants. They basically help us make bigger grants than we otherwise could. That’s where another $57,000 came from this year so that we were able to give away $177,000. We’d love next year to both increase our core budget and see if we can invite a few more people to help us make these grants even bigger.”
In addition, the group awarded the Trisha Worthington Community Service Award, named for their first executive director.
Wilder said the honor went to Dr. John Hanrahan—who has left his mark on several non-profits in town.
“John Hanrahan is one of the founders of People’s Health Clinic and the Hope Alliance and he’s been on boards of so many different organizations and he’s very active in Rotary to the point where he’s now the district governor elect, he’s about to be responsible for the entire state of Utah, as far as rotary goes. It’s interesting, he’s kind of an unsung hero. We looked around and we realized he really hasn’t been recognized, as he should, for this incredible work that he’s done. The non-profits that he’s founded are really critical to this community and to some others. The People’s Health Clinic—where he’s now still the medical director there—provides healthcare to the uninsured. There are a lot of people in this community that would not be getting health care, were it not for the people’s health clinic.”
