Tonight is the off-month of our regular NRP meetings, so I thought I would provide you with a written update of NRP-related activities.
The Plan Mods approved by the board earlier this summer have now been approved and the contracts are processed. If you recall, one of the strategies in one of these contracts was for the farmers’ market for $8000, which has almost been spent to date. The other projects that we now have money for are “green†education ($3000), events and programs in cooperation with the park and at the park ($4000: the ‘with’ will be the hard part here). There are also a number of strategies considered administration (Housing related at $43,000, and general at $22,000), events ($4000), Block clubs ($2000), and Business support ($2000). I will adjust our monthly payroll calculations to spend a greater share of housing money as of this month, since our home loan program will begin in September.
I have also just completed reimbursement reports for the city through July 2007 and wanted to update you on the status of these contracts. I will be closing an old 1997 contract that has just over $2000 remaining in it for block clubs and will request that the board move this money forward into the contract mentioned above. Our admin contract has about $80,000 in it, which will last about 1-½ years. The housing administration program has about $52,000 in it (another reason to “up†the percentage we are spending of time/money to housing).
My goal would be to have these contracts expire at the same time so the KFNA is not forced to only do housing work (rough calculation about 3 years). My other goal is to figure out how we can be more successful at writing and receiving grants to support KFNA. We have submitted 4 project-related grants this summer and only received 1 for $1000 (1 denial—others still being processed). I am stuck on identifying general operating grants but think we need to find some and work on defining KFNA in a way that our work would be fundable to these grantors. Any help any of you can offer on this front would be greatly appreciated. As I have told the board before—the management of projects in KFNA leaves very little time for staff to do writing unless we think it’s perfect fit. To survive as an organization, however, this needs to change.
The next meeting of NRP is set for Monday Sept 17; I will be in touch beforehand as to if we need this meeting. My current thought is it comes on the tail of 4 days of Kingfield/Walldog community events and painting and I would rather have each of you volunteer to be at and work one or more events than sit in a meeting—please consider how you can help with the many Kingfield fundraising activities planned for that weekend including Thursday Sept 13’s Eating for Art, Saturday Sept 15’s Garden Party, Sunday Sept 16’s Harvest Brunch at the market, or even on-site support at one of the two murals on Friday and/or Saturday. Please let me know how you would like to participate.
Thank you–Sarah