Grow II

Giving Resources to Our World (GROW) was a program, in which the Kansas Health Foundation (KHF) worked with community foundations throughout Kansas to ensure local resources remain local. With the goal of strengthening community foundations in Kansas, the Kansas Health Foundation worked with community foundations to help build local philanthropic leadership and resources that would result in long-term, sustained health improvements in communities throughout the state.

Based on the success of this initiative, KHF has begun GROW II, the second chapter of its work with community foundations. GROW II is focused on strengthening the community foundation field in Kansas. GROW II has two main goals. One is to help more Kansas community foundations build permanent resources that will measurably improve the health of local residents. The other is to support collaboration and alliances among community foundations to ensure a well managed and self-sufficient community foundation field in Kansas.

In July 2009, the Kansas Health Foundation announced the first phase of funding for GROW II. Currently, 12 community foundations are involved with this program. Since the inception of the GROW program, KHF’s investment in this area has leveraged the collective endowments of participating community foundations from $19 million to approximately $72 million.

The Kansas Association of Community Foundations has received a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation to manage training for Kansas community foundations and technical assistance to GROW II grantees. The purpose of the KACF Training and Technical Assistance Program is to help Kansas community foundations become more effective and successful. In particular, these activities are focused on helping community foundations better understand financial and program issues that relate to sustainability and forms of cooperation between foundations to reduce cost and increase quality of services. This will help some foundations be more successful in the endowment-matching portion of GROW II.

Find out more about the guidelines and application procedure for GROW II.