OVER
Response and Recovery Community Fund Phase II of the Quick Response Community Fund When the COVID-19 pandemic began wreaking havoc on Eau Claire’s nonprofits—many of which had to cancel fundraisers even as the need for their services increased—we at ECCF knew we had to act. That’s why our Board of Trustees established the Quick Response Community Fund. It allowed us to rapidly deploy financial resources to nonprofits that serve Eau Claire area residents disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
$1 M
GRANTED!
In collaboration with the United Way of the Greater Chippewa Valley (UWGCV), ECCF collected and evaluated grant applications from local nonprofits. A team of dedicated reviewers met each week to recommend grants to address the needs they deemed most urgent. Once approved by ECCF’s Board of Trustees, the grant funding went to the nonprofits as quickly as possible. Although we anticipated only one or two rounds of granting, the community’s incredible generosity allowed ECCF to distribute almost $275,000 over the course of four weeks. ECCF didn’t charge an administrative fee, so 100% of the donations to the Fund supported local nonprofits. Even better, these generous donations allowed ECCF to continue our pandemic-related granting under a new name: The Response & Recovery Community Fund grant cycle. Over the course of the Fund’s 6 grant cycles, the collective impact of grants from ECCF and UWGCV reached over $1 million! Of this amount, ECCF awarded more than $612,000 to 42 nonprofits that serve Eau Claire area residents. 2020 was a year of unprecedented struggle for our community. Even so, the darkness of the pandemic caused the light of generosity to shine even more brightly.
