37 Clubs involved in the 24 applications

Chuck Arnason, District Rotary Foundation Chair (DRFC) reports that 24 grant applications, for a total request of $205,000, were submitted by the May 15 deadline.  A number of these were multi-club grants so a total  37 District 7600 clubs have a stake in the grant applications.

The District will have $135,000 district designated funds (DDF) to award in district grants for the 2017 -18 year. The district grants committee will be doing some careful vetting and research to determine which applications to approve.  Some applicants will receive the full amount requested and others may be approved, but be awarded less than requested. Sadly, a few applications will have to be declined but will be declined with suggestions about how to revamp the application or project if there is a round 2 or for submission in the 2018 -19 year.

Next steps

The award selection process will occur in the next two or three weeks.  When the grants committee has decided on the approved grants, a spending plan will be compiled and submitted to The Rotary Foundation, probably around late June.  At that point, the district must await the approval of the spending plan.  Once that is received the clubs will be notified as to the status of their grant applications by our grants committee.  If all goes well this will happen by the end of July.

Until then

Clubs should await notification by the DRFC before beginning any work on their grants. It is fine to continue research, obtaining additional estimates, identifying additional volunteer resources, etc., but no ordering of supplies or equipment, no expenditure of funds, no turning of ground, no painting, no commitment of funds, signing of contracts, etc., should be done until advised to do so by the district.

Historic Triangle District Grant Project

The other thing to do is to wrap up your club’s giving for the 2016-2017 in grand style.  It is our Annual Fund donations that return to us at the 50% level after three years to fund our grant projects such as the one above from a few years ago.  The Historic Triangle club was purchasing and installing special shock-absorbent rubber mulch at a riding school for special needs kiddos.

We are looking forward to featuring many of the 2017-2018 club grants this year. Good luck and thank you for applying.