Quick Take
Santa Cruz County has chosen 28 community-based organizations to receive a total of $3.44 million over the next three years. They were chosen from a pool of about 100 applications for funding of programs whose mission is to “achieve equitable health and well-being” for county residents. An additional $1.2 million designated for funding community nonprofits has yet to be allocated.
Santa Cruz County has identified 28 community nonprofit programs out of about 100 applications to split $3.44 million in funding with a mission to “achieve equitable health and well-being” for county residents. It comes from a pool of $3.79 million in tax dollars allocated to the county’s CORE, or “Collective of Results and Evidence-Based,” program to support social services carried out by local nonprofit organizations.
Each year, community-based organizations apply for CORE funding by submitting grant requests to the county. They are judged by a panel independent from the board of supervisors — the body that will make the final decision for funding — that grades the applications and makes funding recommendations.
Since the 1980s, the board of supervisors has been taking money from the county’s budget to fund community programs via allocations to nonprofits. The process underwent a change in 2017, when it took on the “CORE” name and added a competitive process for funding, which is still used today. It is based on a three-year funding cycle, with the newly selected programs in line for funding from 2025 through 2028.
Applicants are divided into three tiers — I, II and III — based on how much money they requested. In seeking applications, the board of supervisors and the Santa Cruz City Council established priority areas including equitable access to high-quality education, increased resilience of children and youth as well as older and dependent adults, and safe, accessible and affordable recreation spaces.
Ventures’ Semillitas program, which creates automatic college savings accounts for children from working-class households, was recommended for funding in the lifelong learning and education priority area. It requested the largest amount of any organization in any priority area at $500,000.
previous core funding cycle
Community Bridges’ Family Resource Collective is recommended for the largest single amount of funding in the children and youth priority area at $247,500, closely followed by Encompass Community Services’ Youth and Family Partners program. Community Bridges’ Meals on Wheels program was recommended for funding in the previous cycle, which began in 2022.
Community Bridges’ Elderday program, the county’s only adult day health program, also was recommended for funding in the older and dependent adults priority area, having requested the largest amount in that category at $200,000.
There were no Tier I requests in the recreation spaces priority area, but the largest request recommended for funding was the Friends of Santa Cruz County Parks’ ParkRx Santa Cruz County program, which provides specific outdoor recreational activities to residents. County Park Friends did not apply for funding in the last cycle.
See the full list of winners here.
Along with the $3.44 million set to be awarded, the board of supervisors and Santa Cruz City Council also have an additional $1.2 million in discretionary funding available to proposals that were not recommended by the independent panel. However, how that is dispersed remains a big question. District 3 County Supervisor Justin Cummings said supervisors don’t know which programs were closest to being recommended, but ultimately were not.
“How close were they to other programs that did get funding? When places are not getting funded, it’s helpful for us to understand why, and unless those organizations disclose why, then we have no idea,” he said.
Cummings said he has voted against the current CORE funding process in the past, because of those transparency issues, as well as his personal experiences in the nonprofit sphere: “I’ve dealt with these kinds of processes, and it just doesn’t seem like it’s efficient, and that’s starting to reflect in how the nonprofits are responding to the outcomes of that process.”
Cummings said that, generally, he believes there needs to be a better understanding about each applicant organization’s size, the funding they receive from the county already, if they have received CORE funding in the past, and how their performance has been over time.
“I think there are ways that we can ask direct questions that will help inform how we allocate funding, and why we decide not to fund certain programs,” he said. “Because I have no idea why one has been recommended and one has been denied.”
Cummings said he looks forward to Nov. 19, when the supervisors and Santa Cruz City Council will consider the recommendations at their meetings — and hopes to get some clarity around these big questions.
“I hope it explains this process of who got selected and why and why not, but I have already told county staff that I would like to see the applications, comments and scores in order for me to make an informed decision on the outstanding $1.2 million,” he said.
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