DuPage County offers $1 million in grants to aid small nonprofits

DuPage County is offering a new round of grants to help small nonprofit organizations provide job readiness, food assistance and other programs.

The county has allocated $1.05 million for the second round of the Small Agency Grant Program in fiscal 2025. The funding comes from investment earnings on American Rescue Plan money.

The program will award individual grants ranging from $5,000 to $30,000 for organizations delivering programs and services in the areas of economic development or human services, including job readiness, literacy, education and mentoring, housing and shelter, behavioral health services, substance use disorder treatment, or food assistance.

County board members launched the program in fiscal 2023 and focused on small nonprofits that did not receive funds through either ARPA or the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

“It’s targeting small nonprofits. It’s distributed geographically, and the focus is broad across economic development, education … this big list of things that are eligible potentially,” Deputy Chief Financial Officer Mary Catherine Wells told the board’s human services committee last week.

Funds will be evenly divided between the six county board districts, with $175,000 available to allocate to agencies in those district boundaries.

“It’s important that some of our smaller agencies that don’t always qualify for larger grant programs have an avenue to demonstrate the value their programs bring to our community and to participate in County funding opportunities,” said county board member Greg Schwarze, chairman of the human services committee, in a statement. “We look forward to helping them increase their reach and provide a greater impact in our County.”

Officials also budgeted $1.05 million for the first round of the program. The county received 73 applications totaling $1.5 million. The county ultimately awarded grants totaling nearly $654,000 to 37 recipients.

Among other grant criteria, agencies must have either an annual revenue of less than $300,000 based on its most recently filed AG990-IL tax form or an average annual revenue of less than $300,000 based on its past three years of filed historical AG990-IL tax forms.

Grant applications will be accepted until April 4.