Cumberland County Government is hosting a two-part, free webinar series to help residents prepare for the next round of requests for proposals for opioid settlement funding in early April. The webinars will teach residents how to establish a 501(3)(c), a tax-exempt nonprofit, and apply for county grants.
The two-part series begins at 8:30 a.m. on March 28 with the webinar “Establishing a 501(c)(3) to Apply for Grants.” During the 90-minute talk, county officials will walk organizations through the necessities to becoming a 501(c)(3) that can receive grant money. This includes establishing a board of directors and creating the organizational capacity to receive an influx of dollars.
The second webinar, “Grants 101: Applying for Grants with Cumberland County,” begins at 10 a.m. This 90-minute webinar guides organizations on how to write the narrative section of the county grant application, budget appropriately for the funding and organize the necessary documents for an application.
“It’s geared towards our opioid settlement dollars, but could be applicable to any of the county grants,” Jennifer Green, department director, said during the latest Cumberland-Fayetteville Opioid Response Team (C-FORT) meeting.
While not yet officially released, Green said the latest round of opioid settlement requests for proposals will fund five different projects. Each can receive up to $800,000 over four years.
Specific to this round of proposals, the public health department is requiring a partnership between a health care, behavioral health or treatment provider and a community-based organization or nonprofit to be eligible for funding. The department will look for detailed plans about how these partnerships will operate and how each organization will use its share of the allocated funds.
“We’re really thinking about how do we link the treatment part, the primary health care and behavioral health with other kinds of wraparound services and making sure there’s a strong bridge and link there,” Green said.
The other county grants the webinar series could be relevant to include its Community Impact Grant, which has an April 1 deadline.
Residents can attend the webinar series in person in the third-floor auditorium of the Cumberland County Department of Public Health on Ramsey Street or online via Webex. Organizations can attend one or both sessions, depending on their needs. Attendance isn’t required to apply for county funding.
Those interested in remote attendance can register to receive the Webex links via the county government’s online calendar or C-FORT’s webpage.
Green said this series of webinars addresses public feedback from town halls held last fall, which discussed the county’s use of national opioid settlement dollars.
“During some of the town halls, we got a lot of feedback from some of the smaller nonprofits that said, ‘We need more support in applying for grants,’” Green said.
The webinars are also part of the public health department’s efforts to diversify the organizations they fund. The new opioid settlement fund proposal utilizes an evaluation scoring system, giving extra points to organizations that have never applied for county funding.
Organizations planning on submitting proposals for the county’s opioid settlement funds can expect specific webinars and question-and-answer sessions about that request for proposals in mid- and late April.
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the CityView News Fund.