Community Foundation grant deadlines approach

NEW HAVEN — The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven is accepting grant applications for several of its grants cycles, opportunities that are made possible through one or more of the foundation’s 700 funds.
Deadlines vary and applications and guidelines are available on-line at the foundation’s grants page on its Web site www.cfgnh.org. Paper copies of applications are also available at the foundation’s offices at 70 Audubon St. New Haven, 06510.
Grant for which deadlines approach are: the Community Fund for Women and Girls, the Quinnipiac River Fund and the Neighborhood Small Grants Program for the Lower Naugatuck Valley and New Haven.
The Community Fund for Women & Girls, created in 1995 by a woman to provide ongoing support for services important to women and girls in Greater New Haven and the Lower Naugatuck Valley, has distributed more than $280,000 since 1996 and inspired more than 600 women to participate as donors and volunteers, officials said. Grant applications are due by 5 p.m. Jan. 16. The fund seeks to make grants to projects that: Create and support opportunities for the economic, educational, physical, emotional, social, artistic, and personal growth of women and girls; meet special needs of women and girls and the diverse populations of women in the region, encourage advancement and full participation of women and girls in the community and in philanthropy, advance the status of women and girls in core areas of economic security, health, violence, education and political participation.
The Quinnipiac River Fund was established in 1990 by a court settlement of litigation between the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, the Natural Resource Defense Council and the Upjohn Co. concerning wastewater discharges from Upjohn’s plant in New Haven, fund officials said. The settling parties agreed net income, and in extenuating circumstances, principal of the fund, was to be used to, "improve the environmental quality of the Quinnipiac River and the New Haven Harbor and watersheds of these waterbodies, and otherwise to benefit the environment of these resources." Grant applications also are due by 5 p.m. on Jan. 16, 2009. The fund give preference to prospective grant proposals that address: Effects of the oyster industry and how it can help reduce or remediate pollution on the organisms of the Quinnipiac River, research methods of reducing pollution, or otherwise improving the Quinnipiac River’s environmental health, means of reducing non-point and point sources of pollution to the river, researching the permitting process and looking at the permits themselves, environmental advocacy, except litigation, studying ecology of the river and harbor, providing public education about the river and its watershed, and purchasing land on the river for conservation purposes, or to reduce pollution and improve public access to the river.
The Neighborhood Small Grants Program, one of the foundation’s longest running grant opportunities for civic groups, is a tool through which the foundation and its affiliate, the Valley Community Foundation, work to promote civic participation and to strengthen civic infrastructure within the neighborhoods of New Haven and five towns in the Lower Naugatuck Valley: Ansonia, Derby, Seymour, Shelton and Oxford. Funding is provided to enable civic groups including, but not limited to, neighborhood groups and associations, parent groups, youth groups and faith-based organizations to carryout their civic agenda. Grants range from $100 to $3,000 and are awarded from The Foundation’s discretionary unrestricted funds and the Gates Fund that was established in the 1950s by two brothers, Ross Fletcher Gates and Frank Hegeman Gates, to benefit broad charitable purposes with consideration that a portion of the income benefit residents of Derby and vicinity. The application deadline for the Lower Naugatuck Valley Neighborhood Small Grant Program is 5 p.m. on Jan. 20. Application deadline for the New Haven Neighborhood Small Grant Program is 5 p.m. Feb. 12.