Nine grant applicants have been chosen to move on to the next round of Centre Inspires.
One of those applicants will receive a $100,000 grant that Centre Foundation has created.
“There was a tremendous level of interest for our inaugural year of Centre Inspires,” sasay Molly Kunkel, Centre Foundation executive director. “Almost 40 letters of intent were submitted, which were creative in unique and exciting ways.”
Since the June 30 deadline, the Foundation’s Grants Committee members judiciously winnowed the stack of applicants’ letters down to a handful who will move on to the second and final round.
“We were looking for new, transformative project ideas that would affect large swaths of the county and really encourage community engagement in an innovative way,” explains committee chair Blake Gall.
The next round will begin immediately with in-person meetings between the applicants and Foundation staff members to expand the original concept, answer questions and suggest partnerships.
“Centre Inspires was designed to be a collaborative grant from start to finish, from the partners that come together to execute the idea to the groups in the community who will ultimately experience the final project,” says Sarah Sciabica, Centre Foundation grant and scholarship coordinator. “We’ve scheduled meetings to help guide them through the next phase of the application and suggest partnerships, some of which could possibly stem from ideas that didn’t quite make it to this phase but would thrive with a strong partner.”
Lead organizations moving on to the next phase are the Art Alliance of Central Pennsylvania, Centre County Historical Society, Child Development and Family Council of Centre County, Discovery Space of Central Pennsylvania, Global Connections, Jana Marie Foundation, New Leaf Initiative and Penns Valley Conservation Association. There are other, numerous partner organizations from around Centre County that will be involved with these final project proposals.
This year’s Centre Inspires’ topic revolves around projects that focus on community engagement, culture and the arts. This grant program will rotate through a six-year cycle, touching on education, environment, and health and human services. Next year’s topic will address health and human services in our community.
The preliminary project ideas range from musical interaction, radio spotlights, large-scale sculptures, installment pieces and historical exploration to pop-up art galleries and cultural ideas.
The next phase will require applicants to formalize their partnerships, develop a more detailed budget and explain the entire scope of their proposed project.
These full applications will be due in a few weeks, select presentations will be made to the Centre Foundation Board of Directors and then the grant recipient will be announced at Centre Foundation’s Annual Dinner on Friday, Oct. 17.
