Non-profits in the Park City area are caught in a dilemma by the COVID-19 outbreak. The needs they’re serving may well be increasing, but their ability to raise funds has been undermined.
One sign of hope, according to the Park City Community Foundation, is that the recently-approved federal stimulus can help out non-profits as well as small business.
Katie Wright, Executive Director of the Community Foundation, said that philanthropists around Park City don’t have the resources to help out all the non-profits that need assistance.
Therefore, she’s advising that non-profits look to the federal CARES Act. Wright said they should check with their local banker or lender, because information on how to obtain funding has just surfaced in recent days, and is still subject to clarification.
In particular, she said the Paycheck Protection Act can help programs keep their employees. She said it provides loans that can then become grants.
“If you meet the obligations, which is essentially keeping your payroll and keeping people employed for a certain amount of time, the money that came to your organization as a loan converts into a grant. And so it makes sense for non-profits and other small businesses in town really to put their name in the hat and try to access some of these funds. It has been complex, a lot of moving and changing information. But again, you apply for those loans through a bank, and so you can work directly with a banker to make sure that you get all the proper information in.”
Wright said the Act is intended to help programs with 500 employees or less. The recipients have to have some funding already on hand to pay staffers. And they should check their founding documents to learn what process they have to follow to obtain a loan.
In the meantime, Wright said the Foundation has some $800,000 pledged to its Community Response Fund. They’ve received donations from 150 people, in amounts ranging from $15 to $200,000.
Of the money pledged, Wright said they have received $300,000 and given out grants amounting to $180,000.
She said their funding is important for the most vulnerable members of the community.
“The majority of our support has been for emergency assistance for families and individuals. We early on did a survey of immigrant families in our community and saw that 93 percent of the people surveyed—we had over 100 people respond—had either lost their job or had their hours significantly reduced. So the ability to pay essential bills is really the top concern among vulnerable people in our community.”
Katie Wright, from the Park City Community Foundation.
