Empower: abilities receives Second Year Funding for keys to Housing Initiative

New ‘Resilient Families’ program supports prevention education

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks, in partnership with the Jeannette L. Musgrave Foundation and U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management, presented grants totaling $1,015,010 on June 16 at 300 South Jefferson. These grants comprise three high-impact, multi-year grant programs and support for capital and special projects in the Springfield metro area.

Launched in 2021, the Musgrave Multi-Year Impact Grants target specific areas of the late Mrs. Musgrave’s core philanthropic interests through high-impact grantmaking. The Musgrave distribution committee identified “Resilient Families” as its latest area of focus. This program supports long-term solutions to build family resiliency, empower and educate parents, and improve developmental, educational and social outcomes for children.

The grant recipients and first-year amounts for the “Resilient Families” program are:

• Child Advocacy Center: $100,000 to expand Protecting Our Youth, a prevention initiative designed to shift social norms, empower adults to take protective action, and strengthen families as a core strategy for reducing child physical and sexual abuse in Greene, Christian, Dallas, Polk and Webster counties.
• FosterAdopt Connect: $100,000 to expand and strengthen its prevention-focused services to keep children safely in their homes and out of the foster care system.
• Harmony House: $100,000 to launch Next Gen Prevention, a youth-focused education program to address the systemic issue of relationship violence during the critical period when individuals begin engaging in romantic relationships.

If all agencies meet annual renewal guidelines, the total grants will exceed $840,000 over the three-year period.

The grant recipients and second-year amounts for the “Keys to Housing” program are:

• Crosslines Community Outreach: $25,000 to bolster emergency assistance funding that supports at-risk families with rental assistance, home repairs and application costs for low-income housing.
• Drew Lewis Foundation Inc.: $100,000 to expand the impact of the Blue House Project by renovating houses and providing affordable homeownership opportunities for at least 10 families in Grant Beach and surrounding neighborhoods in northwest Springfield.
• empower: abilities: $85,000 to help individuals with disabilities maintain stable housing and foster long-term independence by providing financial support for rental assistance, move-in expenses, home modifications and essential housing-related costs.
• PFLAG Springfield: $85,000 to launch an initiative that addresses the housing crisis impacting LGBTQIA+ people by hiring a housing coordinator, collaborating with Ekklesia Multi-Cultural House to provide transitional housing opportunities, and to develop and pilot long-term, scalable housing models.

If all agencies meet annual renewal guidelines, the total grants will exceed $840,000 over the three-year period.

The grant recipients and third-year amounts for the “Opportunities to Thrive” program are:

• GLO Center: $45,000 to support the salary of the community services specialist, a new role that will create programs and partnerships to fill gaps in services to LGBTQIA+ people.
• Ozarks Literacy Council: $30,086 to hire a part-time social media manager and to update its website, donor software and email platform.
• Springfield Community Gardens: $19,924 to hire a strategic planning consultant, purchase food hub management software and provide farmers with agricultural training.

Boys & Girls Clubs of Springfield and Ozarks Food Harvest are also part of the “Opportunities to Thrive” cohort. Boys & Girls Clubs received $120,000 to support organizational restructuring, talent investment and development strategy, while Ozarks Food Harvest received $131,122 for improvements to its Full Circle Gardens program. Total grants for the “Opportunities to Thrive” program exceeded $556,000 over the past three years.

Total grants for all Musgrave Multi-Year Impact programs could ultimately exceed $2.2 million.

The CFO and Musgrave Foundation also announced grants from an invitation-only program to support capital and special projects for nonprofits with missions that align with Mrs. Musgrave’s funding priorities of health care and mental health, and improving quality of life for low-income communities, children and babies, and the unsheltered.

• Care to Learn: $100,000 to support the Caring Starts Here capital campaign.
• Community Partnership of the Ozarks: $125,000 to install a playground at the O'Reilly Center for Hope
• Crosslines Community Outreach: $20,000 to support the Next Levell Campaign.
• East Grand Community Services: $30,000 to sustain and strengthen after-school programming for children in the Bingham and Pittman elementary neighborhoods.
• The Library Foundation: $50,000 to support the Teen Space at the new Republic Branch Library.

The grants were announced in Springfield. The Musgrave Foundation’s distribution committee is chaired by Rob Baird and includes Emily Bowen-Marler, Emily Denniston, Ferba Lofton, Peggy Riggs, Michele Risdal-Barnes, Matthew Simpson and Thomas Slaight, with support from CFO staff members Ashley Walden and Ashley Fleming.

The Jeannette L. Musgrave Foundation is a private charitable foundation managed by U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management and administered by the CFO. Since 1983, the Musgrave Foundation has granted more than $22 million to nonprofits in Springfield and southwest Missouri.

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