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$109,000 in special grants up for vote

Nicole Veerman
Northern News Services
Published Friday, February 25, 2011

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The city's Grant Review Committee has identified 19 groups to be awarded special grants in 2011, amounting to $109,000.

Recommended special grant recipients
  • Range Lake North PAC $5,000
  • NWT Mining and Heritage Society $2,500
  • Food Rescue $5,000
  • Status of Women Council of the NWT $10,000
  • NorthWords Writers Festival $3,500
  • Yellowknife United Soccer Club $2,000
  • Kole Crook Fiddle Association $8,000
  • Frozen Eyes Photographic Society $2,000
  • Great Slave Snowmobile Association $10,000
  • Aurora Fiddle Society $4,000
  • Classics on Stage Yellowknife $5,000
  • Yellowknife Community Garden Collective $2,000
  • L'association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife $10,000
  • NWT SPCA $8,500
  • Yellowknife Church of Christ $4,000
  • Yellowknife Gymnastic Club $9,500
  • Federation franco-tenoise $7,000
  • Yellowknife Curling Centre $6,000
  • YWCA of Yellowknife Taiga Adventure Camp $5,000

If approved by council next week, three groups will receive $10,000 each, the largest grants to be awarded: the NWT Status of Women Council, the Great Slave Snowmobile Association and L'association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife.

The Status of Women Council and the Great Slave Snowmobile Association both requested $15,000 in funding.

City councillor Bob Brooks, who chairs the grant committee, said the requests that came in totalled more than $200,000 and the city only had $109,000 to give out, so cuts had to be made to ensure all 19 groups received funding.

"We would have liked to give them basically what they had asked for, but in most cases that was not possible, simply because we did not have the money," he said at the Municipal Services Committee meeting Monday.

"Every single (proposal) was debated by committee and a consensus was arrived at for everyone when we discussed just how much we could afford to give them."

The city gave out $93,500 in special grants in 2010. The increase in funding this year came because Caribou Carnival didn't submit an application for core funding.

The Status of Women Council requested funding to help with hosting a conference from March 7 to 9, while the snowmobile association asked for funding to go toward a trail groomer to cut trails in and around the city and across Frame Lake.

It was L'association franco-culturelle de Yellowknife's first time applying for a special grant. If passed by city council next week, the association will use the $10,000 in funding to help host a Borealis Sjies Festival in December.

Some of the other funding recipients, as recommended by the grant committee, are the Yellowknife Gymnastic Club, the NWT SPCA, Federation franco-tenoise, the Kole Crook Fiddle Association and the Yellowknife Curling Centre.

Special grants are generally awarded to non-profit or not-for-profit organizations that demonstrate a need. The grant should go toward a Yellowknife-based project or event that the committee deems beneficial to the city.

The grant committee reviewed 21 applications, with one, the NWT Cancer Society, not meeting the grant criteria and another, Societe Radio Taiga, lacking a sufficient proposal.

Brooks said Radio Taiga had "no substance whatsoever in their presentation to be able to allow (the city) to be able to give them a grant."

The NWT Cancer Society has met with city administration to learn how to apply for funding in the future. Brooks said the same invitation was given to Radio Taiga.

While reviewing the 2011 grant proposals, the committee also discussed whether the criteria should be changed, said Brooks.

"There was a unanimous opinion of all the members of committee that the special and core grants terms of reference that we have, that we've been operating now for a couple of years, is still relevant and there was no suggestion for changes for what the current terms of reference is," he said.

The recommendation by the grant committee to approve the grant recipients will be before city council on Monday.

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