The Council Discretionary Grant Program Purpose, Eligibility Criteria and Public Benefit
Various entities, including school districts and nonprofit organizations, play an important role in providing services and programs that benefit and enhance the well-being of the Carmel-by-the-Sea community. The City has a history of allocating funding to a myriad of environmental and social programs and projects, and, on January 3, 2017, Council adopted the City Council Discretionary Funds Grant Program (Policy C17-01, attachment 1). The intent of this policy is to provide a clear and consistent framework for both the organizations seeking funding from the City as well as for the Council in making funding decisions based on the demonstrated public benefit to the Carmel-by-the-Sea community derived from the use of the City grant funds.
In accordance with the Council-adopted policy, an organization must meet the following criteria to be eligible to receive funding: (1) located within the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea or provide community, environmental or social services to the community of Carmel-by-the-Sea; (2) constituted as a nonprofit community-based 501(c) organization or be a Carmel school; (3) directly provide the community service(s) for which City funds are sought; (4) not have outstanding debt due to the City; and (5) not be financially dependent upon receiving City support to meet the organization’s annual budget and operational requirements.
In keeping with the spirit of the eligibility criteria, the program specifically excludes the use of City funds to support political activities; to pay for high school or college scholarships; to pay debt; to purchase alcoholic beverages; to pay for travel, meals, lodging, or entertainment expenses; to support services that are primarily commercial, religious or political in nature; to pay for permanent improvements to any non-City owned structure or property so that it becomes an integral part of the real property; and to pay for general operating expenses or expenses to support ongoing operation of the applicant, including, but not limited to, salaries, utilities, and rent expenses.
Discussion
On average, the City receives 8 applications per year from non-profit organizations requesting consideration for grant funding, up to $3,000. For the FY 23-24 Grant Cycle, the City advertised the Discretionary Grant application link and instructions on the city's website for 4 weeks, included info in Friday Letters, published an advertisement in the Pine Cone on March 3rd, and emailed the application link and instructions to all the applicants who applied last year. The advertisement, website posting, and emails to the past applicants included the deadline to apply and instructions regarding submitting the required documentation. At the time of writing this staff report only one application has been submitted, however, we anticipate more will be received before the deadline of April 3, 2023.
Staff will review all of the fully completed applications received by the April 3rd deadline, and come back to Council at the first meeting in May with a list of the eligible applications that were received that meet the Policy C17-01 requirements such as application, proof of 501(c) status, financial statements, operating budget and proposed project and budget plan for the use of the grant funds. Staff will make a recommendation for the Council to award grants based an the amount allocated by Council for Discretionary Grants in the FY 23-24 operating budget. Council will then approve the funding recommendation or provide other direction to staff. The disbursement of the funds to the successful applicant organizations will not occur until after the City Council adopts the final FY 2023-2024 budget and after the start of the fiscal year on July 1, 2022.
In order to prepare the projected budget for FY 2023-2024, staff is seeking direction from Council regarding the total funding amount Council would like to set aside for discretionary grants for the current grant cycle. Last year, Council approved 8 discretionary grants for a total amount of $24,000.