Sarasota County’s 2018 Neighborhood Initiative Grant program underway

Up to $10,000 in matching funds available for projects

Image courtesy Sarasota County

For more than 15 years, Sarasota County has provided matching grant opportunities to help neighborhoods improve their leadership, character, safety, health or environment through the Neighborhood Initiative Grant Program, a county news release points out.

Last year, the Sarasota County Commission awarded nearly all of the program’s $99,000 to 13 neighborhoods located throughout the county, the release adds. Now, Sarasota County’s Neighborhood Services team is educating and hoping to inspire residents for the next round of grants, the release continues.

Applicants must attend a two-hour seminar to be eligible for the program, which awards up to $10,000 in matching funds to a single neighborhood. Seminars are being offered during this month and in April, the release notes.

Program activity will continue the rest of the year with a series called Neighborhood Stories, the release continues. Those stories “will bring together grant recipients, subject matter experts and members of the Neighborhood Initiative Grant Advisory Committee to discuss a completed neighborhood grant project,” the release adds.

“Attendees learn the details and step-by-step process of the grant program at the application seminar, but we wanted to give them an opportunity to hear first-hand success stories from our grant recipients, too,” Miranda Lansdale, coordinator of the grant program, said in the release. “With the neighborhood stories series, they also receive insight from our staff liaisons and members of the scoring committee,” she pointed out.

For more information on the grant program, call the county Contact Center at 861-5000 or visit www.scgov.net (keywords: grants).