Description:
The City Council has adopted a new system for allocating municipal funds to non-profit organizations.  Under this proposal, the city will create a separate fund, called the Montpelier Community Fund. This fund will be managed by a board of Montpelier residents who would be appointed by the city council. In the first year, 2013, the city will appropriate to the fund the approximate amount that was placed on this year’s ballot for non-profit organizations – about $100,000. Citizens will be encouraged to make personal contributions to the fund.

 

The MCF board will solicit applications from non-profit organizations for grants from the fund. The board will take into consideration any prior amounts that organizations have received through ballot initiatives, since many non-profit entities have come to rely on annual city appropriations. The board will also consider the extent to which the grant benefits Montpelier, its residents and the public good.

The MCF board will be responsible for determining that grant funds are used for the purposes for which they were approved.

Under our city charter, non-profit entities would continue to have the right to place funding initiatives on the ballot. To ensure that the new MCF did not simply add a new mechanism to the existing process, funding will be available only to those entities that choose not to petition for funding through a ballot initiative for that year. The MCF fund will also be reduced by the amount to which ballot items are approved, to ensure that the city retains control over the total amount of funds that are appropriated.

Goals:
The goals of the Montpelier Community Fund Board are as follows:

• To create a rational process by which funding requests are considered within the context of an overall budget, with funds allocated based on the needs that are intended to be addressed.
• To allow for the subsequent review of grants to ensure that they were spent as intended.
• To relieve voters of making funding decisions on an ad hoc basis with little information.
• To maintain the city’s commitment to funding non-profit organizations.

Meetings:

• Meeting Agendas are posted HERE in the document library.
• Meeting Minutes are posted HERE in the document library.