Tempe Community Council released its agency review results to city council, recommending which local groups should receive human services grant funding for projects in the coming fiscal year.
TCC was started as a council-initiated nonprofit responsible for leading the agency review process to take the politics out of it and make it community-driven. This allows for the city’s human services grant funds to be connected to the agencies addressing relevant issues.
At Tempe City Council’s May 16 meeting, Deputy Community Health and Human Services Director Octavia Harris and TCC’s Board Chair Nancy Blevins delivered a presentation on the agency review process and the total grants being allotted in the 2024-25 fiscal year.
In this year’s application process, 51 agencies submitted requests, funds were requested for 60 programs across these agencies and 41 programs from 34 agencies are being recommended for council approval.
Blevins said at the meeting that the group continuously strives to put the community’s voices at the forefront of how to allocate human services funding to support Tempe in helping agencies achieve performance goals in areas like homelessness, domestic violence, older adults and individuals with disabilities, among others.
“We pride ourselves in being a model for other municipalities and organizations and focusing on continuous improvement,” Blevins said.
For this year’s agency review cycle, there were changes including TCC’s renewal process that offers multi-year grants, a streamlined application process, interviews only as needed, a continued emphasis on mental health and enhanced volunteer training.
TCC’s agency review relies on the work of over 60 volunteers who review the agencies’ applications to assist in the recommendations made to city council.
“These folks dedicated over 1,300 hours to the process, which begins in November and goes all the way through March for this year,” Harris said.
She went on to cover the funding for this year’s agencies, saying the total available funding came to $1,142,000. Of the 41 programs recommended, 30 of the programs were funded through the pilot multi-year renewal program.
Funding for the grants comes mostly from the city’s general fund, with $1.1 million being allocated toward human services grants. The remaining funding is sourced from Together Tempe through water bill donations, TCC donations and the city’s Healthy Giving Campaign.
Breaking down the funding categories for the coming year’s agencies, $472,227 will go toward stability projects, $441,444 will go toward crisis projects and $228,329 will go toward self-sufficiency projects.
Harris noted that this year focused more on prevention with the bulk of funding supporting stability, compared to previous years where more funding was granted to crisis projects.
“It offers the opportunity for all of the investment that the city is making into crisis services for us to be able to do a little bit more around prevention,” she said.
In the following council discussion, Councilmember Doreen Garlid and other council members thanked TCC for the work completed in this year’s agency review, but Garlid also pointed to the drop in funding requests this year.
In the last funding cycle, the requested funds were over $3 million, which she noted was much higher than the total requests for the current cycle. Harris explained that this came as a result of the renewal process being piloted, which kept the number of new money requests this year lower than in previous ones.
No action was taken May 16, but city council will approve the recommended funding requests for the 2024-25 fiscal year at an upcoming meeting.
Reporter Caroline Yu can be reached at cyu@iniusa.org. To voice your opinion on this story, connect with us at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Caroline Caroline Yu joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2020 as a summer intern covering Scottsdale. As an intern, she continued her coverage of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Tempe. After graduating in 2022, Caroline became a full-time reporter for Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. She is currently reporting for the Tempe market.
Community: She is a supporter of the environment and tries to get involved with related community events.
Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications, with a minor in French.
Random Fact: She used to be a ballet dancer for 10 years.
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