Black Hills Area Community Foundation Awards
$50,000 for eWaste Recycling and Student Education

This year marked the 2nd year that the Black Hills Area Community Foundation (BHACF) awarded the $50,000 Community Action Grant. This year’s recipient is Black Hills Works (BHW) to support their Echo Works Project.

This year, we had 20 organizations indicate an interest in applying for the grant and we invited 6 organizations to apply. All finalists submitted requests for innovative projects with the potential for great impact, which made the final selection process difficult. Ultimately, the Black Hills Works: Echo Works Project was selected based on the partnerships formed, the multiple areas of impact from environment to employment and student education, and the gap in services to our community that Echo Works will address. To read more about the 2019 Community Action grant and the Echo Works project please click here.

Oct. 17, 2018
$50K Community Action Grant Award Goes to Feeding South Dakota

For the first time, the Black Hills Area Community Foundation (BHACF) Board of Directors established the Community Action Grant to provide an avenue through which philanthropy can have a greater impact.  The Community Action Grant will provide $50,000 to an organization that has identified an important area of need, proposed an innovative way to address that need, demonstrates collaboration as a priority, and can strengthen their organizational capacity to allow them to better serve their nonprofit mission.

All the nonprofit organizations that applied for this grant opportunity are addressing important areas of need in our community.  Each solution proposed was creative and we are truly heartened by the incredible innovation with which nonprofits are tackling need in our neighborhoods.  All applicants were worthy of funding, which made making the final decision on which organization to support, extremely difficult.

After careful deliberation, Feeding South Dakota was selected as this year’s recipient of the Community Action Grant.  Feeding South Dakota is taking food to our neighbors and friends rather than asking them to come to the food.  Working together with numerous community stakeholders through Rapid City Collective Impact, Feeding South Dakota helped to identify neighborhoods in our community that were most in need of access to food.  Through this mapping effort, 13 geographic areas of need were identified. Many innovative solutions to address this need have been proposed and are being put into practice.  Among those solutions is Feeding South Dakota’s pop-up mobile food truck.  On a monthly basis, Feeding South Dakota will take their mobile food truck to individuals and families in the priority areas identified.  Families will have an opportunity to shop for food closer to their homes, removing the barrier of access to transportation.  This effort has already been piloted for several months and the response has been incredible.  In addition to supporting the mobile food truck, these grant funds will help Feeding South Dakota purchase new technology and software to better track individuals and families receiving services.  The information collected with this technology will help to inform the entire service area, helping to define what the broader needs are and shape better ways to address those needs in the long-term. 

We are truly honored to award Feeding South Dakota with this year’s Community Action Grant and look forward to our year of partnership together in addressing hunger in our community!

Oct. 17, 2018