“Local foundations are among the most important attributes of strong communities. Weak communities on the other hand typically have few foundation resources.”

I remember sitting in an office in the inner city of Philadelphia in 1993.  I was on a graduate class field trip to an agency that had made extraordinary strides in bringing back to life what had been a deteriorated neighborhood. Local foundation support coupled with strong local leadership had made a visible difference. The speaker’s statement made a lasting impression on me.

As we all know, West Virginia struggles near the bottom on many economic indices. Some of this might be related to the fact that West Virginia has relatively few dedicated local foundations. The Benedum Foundation is one of these notable few. In recent years the Hollowell Foundation in Lewisburg has provided excellent regional support for modest proposals. And the Snowshoe Foundation is now coming on as an excellent resource for our locale.

Pocahontas County alone has over 80 nonprofit organizations, many of which from time to time seek funding for their projects.  While raffling off a rifle, or holding bake sales and cake walks, or doing door-to-door solicitation might raise funds for small projects, larger scale developments typically require grant assistance. Finding sources for grants and developing strong grant proposals takes skill and effort.

To that end, Pocahontas Libraries with financial support from the county commission has become a Collaborating Collection of the Foundation Center.  McClintic Library hosts the collection, which includes excellent print resources and nine dedicated online databases.  McClintic is one of 6 locations in the state with these resources, the nearest other collections being in Bluefield, Charleston, and Shepherdstown. 

PCFL and FRN co-jointly hosted grant training workshops on May 17 with over 20 people in attendance. Further workshops for the public will be forthcoming. In addition, the Foundation Center has numerous online training resources at its website at www.foundationcenter.org/ While many online resources are available free to the public, some of the dedicated search engines must be used at McClintic Library.

The Foundation Center databases can also search for individual academic scholarships as well as for grants for individuals pursuing projects such as in the arts.

Strengthening community nonprofit organizations will bolster our county and region. We invite interested people to learn more about the Collaborating Collection at McClintic Library and to avail themselves of this extraordinary service.