Committee recommends a slate of Community Impact Grants, forwards allocations to full council

At its April 21 meeting, the Richland County Community Impact Grants Committee voted to forward a slate of recommended grants to the full county council for final action, approving award amounts for multiple nonprofit programs from the FY2027 CIG application cycle. The committee reviewed the program overview, compliance report and third-party rankings before taking motions to fund individual organizations; the application window ran from Dec. 2, 2025, through Feb. 1, 2026, and the committee set a cap of $200,000 per organization for this cycle.

The committee heard from Bridal Hammond, the county’s director of budget, who noted that awardees flagged in yellow in the packet are currently noncompliant and that staff had reached out to those organizations multiple times, including in the prior 30 days. "The applicants or the awardees who are highlighted in yellow are the ones who are noncompliant at this time," Bridal Hammond said. Committee members asked how noncompliance is handled and whether unspent funds from FY2025 had been returned; ACA Thomas said the funds remain available through FY2026 and estimated a prior balance of about $147,000 if not used by fiscal year end.

Members discussed application changes for FY2027: the prior "community partner"…