The City of Richmond is guided by a social strategy that goes beyond our responsibility to provide infrastructure such as roads, sewers, dikes and parks.
Arts and culture, health, social and safety services, child care and community events are all important services delivered and supported by the city.
As the provincial and federal governments step away from supporting many of these services, it falls upon the city to provide support in these areas.
City council recently dealt with the annual grants for 2014. More than $787,000 will be distributed to 89 organizations through four different grant programs for: Health; social and safety services; arts and culture; child care capital; parks and recreation events.
The Alzheimer Society, Boys and Girls Clubs, Canadian Mental Health Association, Richmond Addiction Services, Richmond Music Society, Richmond Arts Coalition,
Sharing Farm, and Society of Richmond Children's Centres - this emphasizes the wide range of deserving groups supported.
As a council, we wish we could do more for the deserving service providers but know that every amount granted has a positive effect on the organizations' ability to operate.
In recognition of the evolving needs of our growing community and the shrinking dollars given to our community groups by senior governments, the annual amount of community grants award by council has more than tripled since 2004.
Our community grants program is primarily funded through casino revenue sharing funds so there is no impact on the city's operating budget or property taxes.
As part of our expanded grant funding, we specifically introduced a new Arts and Culture category in 2012. This new program supports council's term goals which seek to support the development of a thriving and diverse cultural sector, which provides significant social and economic benefits to the community. This year, more than $100,000 is being awarded to local arts and culture groups through this fund.
Over the past few years, we have also made the grant process more accountable to ensure our taxpayers are receiving good value for the money we invest in the various community groups and events funded by these programs.
A more rigorous weighting system has been developed to evaluate grant applications so we can ensure monies are directed to the areas of greatest need and impact on the community.
Applicants must also provide more detailed information to show both financial need and their organization's capacity to meet its committed use of the grant money. In addition, at the end of the year, they must report back on how the money has been used.
In 2011, council also introduced the opportunity for some community groups to apply for multi-year funding. While this does not guarantee the amount of money groups will receive each year, it does provide some certainty to allow these groups to do longterm
planning. To make life easier for community groups, this year the city streamlined the grant application process by introducing a new online application system.
The new web-based application system was created to provide an integrated, user-friendly, efficient and effective online system for applicants. In addition to eliminating a lot of paperwork for both community organizations and city staff, one of the benefits of this new system is that all information is now stored online. This means it can be reused to complete grant applications for future years - eliminating a lot of copying and reentry of information that was required under the former paper-based system.
These grant programs are only one part of the picture. Local community groups must still do considerable work to raise additional funding to provide the many important services that they deliver and that help make Richmond a great community. Thank you to all the organizations and volunteers that make Richmond a special place to live.
