Lakewood City Council working on the Community Grant Program

The Community Grant Program (CGP) in Lakewood awards financial grants of various amounts to nonprofit organizations who are working in the city and who apply for the grant. At first it can feel strange for the city to offer tax collected money as a grant to nonprofits, but I think there are at least 5 good reasons why this is a good idea for the City of Lakewood to do. Thankfully, the Mayor and a unanimous vote from the City Council agrees!

Here are some reasons why incentivizing nonprofits in a city is a good idea:

1. Bargain Multiplication: The City Council seeks to guide the BEST use of tax payer dollars. Nonprofits (NPs) perform services the City/County/State can’t or don’t perform, and they do it without impacting the tax base. The CGP allows the city, at a bargain amount, to ensure that these vital services continue. By using a minimum of money the City Council can multiply a maximum of good!
2. Best Practices: The CGP enables the city to award NPs best practices thus defining of what excellence looks like in an organization. Other NPs will aspire to rise to the excellence of the organizations who receive the grant. It is wise for the city to aim all NPs towards excellence and the grant ensures strong, vital and impactful NPs that are run wisely and efficiently.
3. Greater Good: The CGP inspires innovative compassionate breakthrough vision in the city by people who notice needs and are compelled to answer them. By noticing and rewarding the compassionate entrepreneurial spirit already working hard in our community we multiply the good and minimize the suffering of our citizens. This grant will increase the overall good accomplished in our city!
4. Minimize Suffering: The CGP lowers suffering in Lakewood. There is no way County Human Services and other organizations can find and help all the people in our city who are struggling. The CGP is a goodwill catalyst spinning off more citizens who feel deputized to help their neighbors. The more Lakewood becomes a caring and serving city the lower the composite pain existing in our city.
5. Loving Neighbors = Loving City: The CGP reveals the hidden stories of sacrifice and service in our city. Every day hundreds of people in Lakewood go out of their way to help their neighbor. NPs are loving neighbors organized to maximize their talents, treasures, and time in order to impact the most people with the greatest good. Every dollar given in this grant will multiply into the unseen heroic acts that make Lakewood vital into and through the future.