Community Foundations Announces $175,000 in Leadership Grants

Jan. 16, 2017

Through strategic Leadership Grants, the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines plays a key role in providing significant funding to projects that strengthen Greater Des Moines by responding to community trends and opportunities.  Leadership Grants are funded through donations to the Better Together Fund. Donors to the Better Together Fund give to support community needs now and into the future as identified through the Community Foundation’s grantmaking process facilitated by the organization’s expert staff, Grantmaking Committee and board of directors. The Community Foundation announces support of the following two organizations with Leadership Grants:

Home Opportunities Made Easy, Inc.
A $100,000 Leadership Grant was provided to support the Vision 2020 Capital Campaign effort through the establishment of a revolving loan fund to acquire land, pay pre-development costs and assist in lowering financing costs for families purchasing homes. The revolving loan is instrumental in helping HOME Inc. complete their 2020 Vision Capital Campaign effort to develop 37 units of rental and homeownership units for a total of 61 low income families in the Capital Park Neighborhood and the Birdland area, along with counseling and education services. “HOME, Inc. is thrilled to be a recipient of a Leadership Grant from the Community Foundation. The grant will be used for our revolving loan pool to develop affordable housing for low income families and will help us not only today, but for years to come. This Leadership Grant will make a lasting impact on the lives of the families we sere and the neighborhoods they live in,” shares Pamela Carmichael, HOME, Inc. executive director.

Habitat for Humanity
A $75,000 Leadership Grant was awarded to Habitat for Humanity to support the Pocket Neighborhood Project which will provide affordable, homeownership options in the Birdland neighborhood in Des Moines.  The pocket neighborhood would include at least 18 single family homes that will be clustered together on a newly created “street” with a shared outdoor space and a cul-de-sac atmosphere.  The pocket neighborhood concept is an innovative approach for the revival of an existing neighborhood, while also focused on stabilizing families and creating support networks through social capital building.  The possibilities of replication for this strategy could be strong and provide another model for affordable, single family housing options throughout Central Iowa. As Lance Henning, president and executive director of Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity shares, “Habitat for Humanity is excited to return to the area we once called home as we work to revitalize Des Moines’ Birdland area in 2017 and 2018. Habitat’s vision is to transform the Birdland area into a thriving neighborhood with homeownership at its core. The Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines’ support will allow Habitat to create at least 20 affordable homeownership opportunities in a unique pocket neighborhood concept, the first of its kind in Iowa.”