The Community Foundation of Otsego County’s Board of Directors spent the past six months listening to our local nonprofit and community leaders, university and business leaders, donors, and the public, to develop an enhanced strategic plan to meet new challenges. These discussions, formal and informal, helped our board identify three areas in which CFOC, with your support, will work to improve life for all community members.
One: Growing and Strengthening our Community. Local communities within Otsego County need fresh, innovative and creative approaches. We want to help reverse our population decline, attract and retain young people, increase diversity, and support entrepreneurship and economic development. Backing efforts designed to address these needs is a CFOC priority. Nor will we lose sight of our community’s most vulnerable members. We will continue to support local nonprofit efforts to overcome food insecurity, to address the lack of adequate mental health resources, to provide transportation, and find affordable housing across our community.
$150K in Funds Available; First Deadline is June 15
SPRINGFIELD
As of March 1, the Community Foundation of Otsego County is accepting applications for its 2023 Awards Cycle. According to a recent press release, this year’s cycle includes the following new features:
$150,000.00 total to be allocated.
There are three categories—“Strengthening Our Community,” “Strengthening Our Nonprofits” and “Addressing Immediate Needs.”
Deadlines: The first-round closes June 15, 2023 and the second round closes October 15, 2023.
FAQs—A list of questions and answers to help applicants through the process are found on cfotsego.org under “Get Funding.” More FAQs will be added as questions come in.
Former Cooperstown Mayor Jeff Katz returns to a life of serving his community when he takes the helm as the first executive director of the Community Foundation of Otsego County at the start of the new year.
“This is thrilling and an honor to have been chosen,” Mr. Katz told The Freeman’s Journal/Hometown Oneonta. “I’m looking forward to the engagement and the change to get out and see people throughout Otsego County.”
The Foundation (CFOC) awarded more than $250,000 to Otsego County non-profits in 2020-21, focused initially on helping organizations operate safely through Covid-19. In 2021, CFOC opened its award programs to fulfill its broader mission to help innovative non-profits develop and expand capabilities. CFOC also this year completed a $2 million donor drive to establish the Founders Fund.
Mr. Katz served as Cooperstown’s mayor from 2012-2018 and as a Village Trustee from 2005-2012. He said he will bring his same focus on advocacy to his new role for the foundation.
We first announced the creation of the COVID-19 Relief & Recovery Fund in this newspaper on April 21. We had not intended to start our public life this way, but the need for such a fund was obvious to us and we felt a deep responsibility to join those already fighting the pandemic.
What we can now report is that the community, the entire community, has risen to the same call and joined us.
Harry Levine, board chairman of the Community Foundation former chairman of the Otsego Land Trust, lives in Springfield.
Here are a few points:
• You have contributed over $200,000 in less than two months.
• Awards have been granted to 12 nonprofits for a total of $60,000.
• Another 12 applications are being reviewed right now.
• More than 250 individuals and families have joined in supporting the fund.
• Another 20 organizations have endorsed the fund, including the county Board of Representatives, our Congressman (Antonio Delgado), our state Assemblyman (John Salka), our state Senator (Jim Seward), and six local town boards.
We are awarding every $1 received to help alleviate the crisis. The costs of the Fund are being absorbed entirely by the Community Foundation of Otsego County.
Some funds are being reserved to help small businesses restart. But even these funds will be allocated quickly as the need far exceeds the size of the Fund.
We wish we could award two or three times the amounts we have been able to distribute. We are encouraging applicants to return for more, if we have more. Certainly, the need is there.
This can be done if everyone of us helps out. If you have not yet contributed to the COVID-19 Fund or if you are able to make a second contribution (some donors have actually made three contributions), please do so now. Go to our website at www.cfotsego.org for a list of awards and donation instructions.
We cannot write this report without noting that our local governments and our hospitals (and all those people who work at these institutions) have done a tremendous job meeting the pandemic head on.
They have prepared well. They have coordinated actions and publicized consistent messages, allowing all of us to behave with confidence and take personal actions to protect ourselves and our neighbors.
We see face masks in use more often than not. Spacing between us is generally in line with public health guidelines. Shoppers at grocery stores are respectful of proper distancing.
As a result, the health aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic have been relatively under control.
We have had serious illnesses and even deaths. But our health system has not been overwhelmed as it has been in other parts of the country. And health workers have been there for us when they are needed.
Economically, however, we are likely to suffer worse than many other areas. Our economy is heavily dependent upon tourism and upon the summer season of public events. In financial terms, this summer will be a disaster.
We already have seen the signs of closed businesses. Personal income is down. Small businesses are going to struggle to reopen. Sales taxes, bed taxes, allocations from State and Federal budgets are going to be cut back, putting budgetary pressure on our local governments. The future is going to be hard.
In this light, the Community Foundation of Otsego County sees an immediate need being addressed by the COVID-19 Fund and a longer-term mission to continue supportive efforts to tackle the challenges of our area.
Today, we are focused on fighting the pandemic, but there will be a tomorrow and we intend to be there to continue working to improve the lives of those who live in our community.
Please join us and donate today. Your money is being well spent and much appreciated. Stay with us tomorrow as we work to improve the quality of life in our area.
COOPERSTOWN – Local citizens face “an emergency need” to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the new Community Foundation of Otsego County. So at 2 p.m. today, the CFOC announced it has created the COVID-19 Relief & Recovery Fund.
“Otsego County unemployment is rising and we are seeing growing numbers of potentially fatal illnesses,” CFOF announced in a statement. “The nonprofit service sector of our economy is faced with overwhelming assistance requests, and we are going to help.”
The CFOC is chairman by Harry Levine, Town of Springfield, former president of the Otsego Land Trust. The vice chair is Gary Herzig, Oneonta’s mayor; treasurer, Sarah Manchester, Oneonta, limited partner in Edward Jones, the financial advisers, and secretary, Bob Schlather, the Cooperstown attorney and accountant.
