Exit133 Community Giving - Check Delivered

The Exit133 Community Giving Program has officially completed its first grant.

A few months back, we invited you to join us to help make a difference. We partnered with the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation and created a fund into which we could put some money. We didn’t know what to expect. In the end, fourteen people contributed to the fund and we were able to structure our money into a $1000 grant.

The next challenge for us was determining how to distribute the funds. We invited all the contributors to a meeting at Cork! last week. Seven people were able to make it to the meeting. The goal was to take this group of individuals and distill our ideas of giving into a single grant recipient.

Kristen Corning from GTCF provided the group with background information on the project and helped us as we meandered through our very own grantmaking process.

She started by describing to the the group the five topics highlighted by the GTCF’s grant distribution committee for their Spring Grant Cycle: Access to arts and cultural activities for all residents; Civic engagement initiatives that connect diverse individuals and organizations; Encourage environmental stewardship through educational efforts; Enhance education by fostering a passion for learning; Family sustainability through education and personal responsibility.

Then Kristen asked the group to consider the following questions:

• What compels you about each of these categories?
• What do you want to see happen in Tacoma in each of these categories?

This discussion lasted more than an hour. From our major discussion points, the group discovered several themes that we felt could help guide our decision:

• issues/programs that crossed boundaries and that meet a core foundational need
• organizations that are grassroots and have a smaller budget (so that our grant will have greater impact on their work)
• arts related programs that impact youth and provide youth with role models
• engagement with kids and adults to provide opportunities for them to work together and invest in something in their community

It quickly became apparent that there were just a few organizations in GTCF’s current grant cycle that met our general themes. The list started with dozens of organizations. Quickly it became five. Then four. At that point, someone called for a vote. By a unanimous vote, we chose the Indochinese Cultural & Service Center.

ICSC’s mission is to improve the quality of life of Southeast Asian communities. They are located on Tacoma’s eastside and provide multi-generational services to its community. They offer tutoring programs. They offer senior food programs. They provide a lot of services to a part of Tacoma that we don’t often hear about.

We made the presentation of our check at yesterday’s GTCF grant reception as a surprise finish for the event. We weren’t on the agenda and nobody came to the event knowing that there was more money to be handed out. As we announced the program and the recipient, people seemed touched. Korath Norin, the Executive Director of the ICSC, was quite shocked and extremely grateful. This was a great ending for our first ever grant.

We would like to thank all the contributors for their gifts. We need to thank the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation for the guidance. Finally, a big thank you to all of your for reading Exit133. We’ll do this again next year.

More information on the ICSC can be found at ICSC-Tacoma.org