As 2022 winds down, it’s only natural to look back at the year behind us, see how far we’ve come, what we’ve accomplished, and what lies ahead. At our Annual Meeting in December, NCHT staff presented a Year in Review report to our Board of Directors. We wanted to share this presentation with our community and nonprofit partners in a series of year-in-review blogs.
April
After establishing our HR systems and launching our new identity, we began staffing our program team in April of 2022. We were thrilled to welcome Samantha Smith and Ray Pacheco as Senior Directors of Programs and Community Engagement. The pair lead our programmatic work around grantmaking, systems change, and advocacy alongside our CEO.
July
We rounded out our program staff by hiring Grants Manager Jeremy Yates in July. Jeremy serves as the first point of contact for all things related to grant applications and has been busy researching, selecting, and customizing a grants management system which we will be rolling out in 2023.
Also that month, NCHT launched a grant writing assistance pilot program with seven local nonprofits. This effort was spearheaded by our VP of Finance Kylie Gibson to help nonprofits capture state, federal, and national philanthropic dollars that are often left on the table due to a lack of grant writing resources in the County. Feedback from these nonprofits has been very positive, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants applied for to date. After evaluation of the pilot, the Trust hopes to roll this program out to the broader nonprofit community next year.
Also in July, the Trust announced the recipients of five scholarships for the University of Wyoming Master of Public Administration program. These scholarships were awarded to Natrona County nonprofit leaders who are seeking to better their leadership of their organizations through continued education. Recipients of the scholarship are:
- Vickery Fales Hall, Wyoming Community Foundation
- Gena Jensen, National Historic Trails Center Foundation
- Ben Kinion, The Science Zone
- Dawn Lacko, NOWCAP Services
- Tess Mittelstadt, Habitat for Humanity
The Trust plans to continue this partnership with the University of Wyoming, offering more scholarship opportunities in 2023.
Watch for more year-in-review posts throughout the rest of December on our website and Facebook page.
