Gifts to Creating Safe, Equitable and Thriving (SET) Communities Fund Support Youth Violence Reduction Efforts

The Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation announces contributions are being accepted to its Creating Safe, Equitable and Thriving Communities (SET) Fund.

The SET Fund was created in 2018 to help facilitate a grantmaking process to address the recommendations of the SET Task Force, comprised of a group of community partners that included the City of Cedar Rapids, Linn County, Cedar Rapids Community School District, local nonprofit organizations and neighborhood groups.

“Our community has been working to build safe, equitable and thriving communities through the SET Task Force and the subsequent Community Foundation grantmaking programs. The Task Force dove beyond gun violence to understand the root causes of it in our community, which include the economic disparities and lack of opportunities, particularly for people of color,” says Okpara Rice, Chief Executive Officer at Tanager Place and Community Foundation Board of Directors and SET Policy Committee member. “The data is available and the report provides recommendations of what our community needs.”

In the 2017 SET Task Force Report, recommendations for the community were outlined that target improved community outreach and engagement, economic opportunity, safe and affordable housing, educational success, supportive law enforcement practices, and improved access to youth programming and other health and human services.

The goal of the SET Fund at the Community Foundation is to improve community safety by strengthening economic, social and academic conditions for youth and neighborhoods. So far it has distributed over $160,000 in grants in 2019. It has been primarily funded by contributions from the City of Cedar Rapids, Linn County, the Cedar Rapids Community School District, and the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation.

In recent weeks, the Community Foundation has received several gifts to the fund. “This is imperative work,” says Michelle Beisker, Senior Vice President of Development at the Community Foundation. “It’s the kind of work we must do today to improve the long-term health and vibrancy of our community for all our citizens. We look forward to growing the support for this effort and invite our community to give now.”

The Community Foundation remains committed to providing grants that address the community’s greatest needs and opportunities and complex topics of broad community importance such as the SET Fund efforts. The next grant deadline is Friday, September 18, 2020 with SET Fund planning sessions to be held July 24, 2020 and August 14, 2020.

To donate to the fund, click here.

To learn about how to apply for a SET Fund grant, click here.

To review the 2017 SET Task Force Report, click here.

To learn more details about the SET Fund, click here.

To learn how SET Fund grantees are pivoting their programming during the COVID-19 pandemic, click here.