Reflecting on five years of Transformation Grants
“By improving the lives of individuals, we also meet the needs of our boarder region. We want our young people to stay here. We are working to reduce homelessness. We are working to address mental health. We are encouraging entrepreneurship. We hope to transform the community. And we can, thanks to the generosity of our community.”
Sherry Ristau
Jean Moran
Randy Moore
Marie Ziegler
When Sherry Ristau joined the Quad Cities Community Foundation five years ago as president and CEO, she asked the board of directors how they wished to transform the Quad Cities region. “As a Community Foundation, we are uniquely positioned to both identify—and support—critical needs and promising opportunities where we live,” Ristau said. “And, we have incredible leadership on our board that represent a cross-section of our community to guide our decision-making.”
There were a variety of ideas that came from the Community Foundation board—from actively participating in the Quad Cities Regional Vision to uncovering larger ways, through grantmaking, to tackle some of the region’s issues head-on.
“Our mission is to transform the region through the generosity of donors, and when Sherry challenged us to think about the ways that might manifest through our work, we kept coming back to a desire to move the needle ahead—in large ways—on initiatives our community was tackling,” recalled Jean Moran, current chairperson of the board of directors. Moran has served on the grantmaking committee—made of volunteers across the region—for more than a decade.
“We wanted to do something more… something that was big, and also incredibly meaningful,” she added. “We were interested in taking our grantmaking to the next level.”
And so five years ago, Transformation Grants were born, made possible thanks to donors who make gifts to the Quad Cities Community Impact Fund at the Community Foundation. The first Transformation Grant was made in 2015 to the Scott County Housing Council for homelessness prevention. Since then, $100,000 grants have been awarded to the United Way Women United Born Learning Initiative, Family Resources’ Comprehensive Care Coordination Services Program, Grow Quad Cities for the Q2030 Regional Action Plan, and last year, to the Robert Young Center and Child Abuse Council.
The 2019 Transformation Grants will be announced on Tuesday, December 10, 2019.
“The Transformation Grants are one of the reasons I’m so proud to serve on the board of the Community Foundation,” said Randy Moore, board secretary and president of Iowa American Water. “This is a very forward-thinking organization, and there are significant things we can make possible thanks to the generosity of donors. Nonprofits can—and do—have a major impact on the Quad Cities. Oftentimes, the only thing preventing them from a leap forward is financial support.”
Moore went on to say that a lot of consideration is given to the overall condition of the community, with an overarching focus on poverty, education and reaching marginalized people. “The fundamental criteria or goal we set through the Transformation Grants is to support efforts that have a far-reaching, positive impact.”
“One of the wonderful things about our board of directors is that we are keyed into efforts and issues we face as a region,” said Marie Ziegler, who has also served on the grantmaking committee and on other community-focused boards in the Quad Cities. “With every decision we make, we are hoping to empower people, support efforts that can sustain themselves in the future, and bring people and organizations together.”
“We are also interested in supporting efforts that bridge the river—and have a positive, transformative impact on both sides of the Mississippi.”
Through five years of Transformation Grants, the board members all said they are seeing transformation occur before their eyes. “By improving the lives of individuals, we also meet the needs of our boarder region. We want our young people to stay here. We are working to reduce homelessness. We are working to address mental health. We are encouraging entrepreneurship,” Ziegler said. “We hope to transform the community. And we can, thanks to the generosity of our community.”