City, county agree to keep July RFP, explore shifting more nonprofit grant administration to CSAC

City and county officials met with members of the City-County Advisory Commission (CSAC) to review CSAC’s recommendations for nonprofit grantmaking, agree to hold the current application schedule and discuss moving more funding and administrative responsibility to CSAC.

CSAC commissioner Gina, who presented the commission’s review, told elected officials the group wants to “strengthen our grant making efforts. We want to improve clarity, efficiency, and alignment with community need, and we want to foster city and county coordination.” Gina outlined recommendations on funding categories, eligibility, the application timeline and administrative support.

The meeting produced three near-term outcomes: county staff will publish the CSAC request for proposals (RFP) on the usual July 1 timetable for this cycle; city and county leaders agreed to provide a named point of contact to support CSAC during the open application period; and elected officials asked staff to produce clearer priority areas for CSAC to use when evaluating applications for future cycles.

CSAC’s presentation summarized four years of awards: roughly $4.5 million in CSAC funding went to 32 nonprofits across the city and county in the last four years, and approximately 90% of that funding was for operating expenses, the commission reported. Melissa, a city nonprofit coordinator referenced in the presentation, said the average award was about $33,000 and noted that 23 of the 32 organizations received funding every year in that period.

CSAC members urged changes including narrowing funding categories, discouraging duplicate requests across city, county and CSAC, allowing annual applications (with exceptions), and limiting large capital-campaign awards while permitting mission-critical renovations. Gina said the commission wants to continue encouraging general operating support in some cases, particularly where federal cuts could leave organizations unable to operate.

Tony Montoya, a CSAC commissioner since 2019, urged the governing bodies to approve updated bylaws and an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) that align, and to address member recruitment and removal processes. “I did not realize when I got on just how much time it was going to take to serve on this commission,” Montoya said, describing the workload of site visits and application review.

City officials signaled support for moving a larger share of nonprofit funding through CSAC and for tightening application and monitoring requirements. The mayor’s office proposed reassigning roughly $200,000 of previously direct nonprofit allocations into CSAC and adding $60,000 to bring each jurisdiction’s CSAC contribution from $490,000 to $550,000 (a combined total of about $1.1 million), conditional on county concurrence and council budget approval. The city also said it would be willing to manage contracts and vendor payments if both jurisdictions preserve the current administrative contributions (about $25,000 each) and fund a part-time administrative position to support year-round monitoring and application work.

Mark Aloff, who identified himself at the meeting, called CSAC’s work “phenomenal” and urged elected officials to either fully empower CSAC with the tools it requests or to bring grantmaking back in-house. Several commissioners and council members said they want clearer priority areas and guardrails so CSAC can evaluate applications against shared goals rather than leave funding decisions to individual elected officials.

Officials agreed not to change the RFP schedule midstream for this grant cycle and to publish the RFP on July 1, with an application deadline of Aug. 1, application review in August and site visits in September and October. They also asked city and county staff to provide CSAC the point of contact who will field applicant questions during the open cycle and said they will work this year to align bylaws and the IGA prior to the next full funding cycle.

Background and next steps: CSAC said demand for funds exceeds available dollars and that federal and state funding cuts are placing added pressure on local nonprofit partners. Commission members asked for more administrative support to manage applications and quarterly monitoring. City and county leaders requested that CSAC provide proposed priority areas by the end of the month to guide site visits and scoring. The discussion continued with officials agreeing to revisit structural changes, administrative responsibility and bylaw/IGA alignment ahead of the 2027 cycle.

No formal motions or votes on funding changes were recorded during the meeting; participants discussed budget proposals and next-step commitments to deliver timelines, staffing decisions and bylaw/IGA revisions.