Madison Christian Giving Fund receives almost 60 applications for community initiatives

Scott Haumersen, a chair of the fund, speaks at the Madison Christian Giving Fund's 2015 Kickoff (Hedi LaMarr Photography/Madison Christian Giving Fund)

The Madison Christian Giving Fund will begin its grant deliberation process this month, reviewing the more than 50 applications from organizations in the community looking for financial support.

The Fund’s goal is to meet financial needs in the community through its annual campaign, which is ongoing.

A chair of the Fund, Scott Haumersen, says the organizations that applied are often faith-based initiatives, outgrowths of existing agencies and organizations or startup nonprofits themselves. The grant proposals total $514,167 in requested support, a number Haumersen says shows “a substantial need in the community.”

With many of these organizations finding it hard to obtain funding because of their outright Christian message, Haumersen says the Fund is a good place for them to come for assistance.

“One of the things we’re really excited about funding and having impact on is allowing groups of Christians or organizations to come up with an idea and have a place to go for funding… I almost kind of see ourselves in some aspects of this as sort of angel investors,” Haumersen said.

While most applications come from groups with a Christian message, Haumersen says some of the grant proposals the fund has received are from secular organizations. One such proposal came from the Boys & Girls Club of Madison, looking for funding to take disadvantaged youth on campus tours at various Christian colleges around the Midwest.

As the proposal from the Boys & Girls Club shows, Haumersen says the Fund can be a tool in the community for everyone, regardless of their faith.

“They saw a need where they could interject a faith component into their programming… People who perhaps are not of faith might believe for others that faith-based programming is still a good thing for our community. I’m believing we could probably find some success in fundraising from people that would not profess that christianity was their belief,” Haumersen said.

The Boys & Girls Club campus visits could be a highly impactful tool according to Haumersen, and one he doesn’t think could find funding elsewhere.

“Most of the kids that are in the inner city will never have the opportunity to ever see a college while they’re still in high school,” Haumersen said. “Stephen Covey said in one of his seven habits, ‘Begin with the end in mind.’ So imagine if you took a kid in high school out of the inner city and drove them to a Christian campus and college, and they spent a day there touring the campus and seeing what their life could be like outside of their current environment. Think about the impact that might have in their lives.”

Along with the Boys & Girls Club proposal, the number of applications the Fund received this year is something Haumersen says shows promise, despite the hardships the new giving fund has faced.

“I’m really excited about the almost 60 applications. It just demonstrates to me there’s a reason we exist, and a real need out there. I think maybe the hardest thing is because we’re brand new, people don’t know who we are. A donor is unlikely to give a significant amount of money to something that they don’t understand, unless the request had been made by a friend or someone that they trust. But I think that there’s an enormous capacity once people understand what we’re doing and why we’re doing it,” Haumersen said.

The Fund’s grant committee will meet on Nov. 13 and Dec. 11 to deliberate on the applications, but final grant amounts will not be determined until the monetary sum generated by the campaign is known.