Council approves recommendations on grant program

Prince George City Council approved recommendations in regards to the City’s grants program at this week’s meeting.

These recommendations came from a Committee of the Whole meeting on October 14th.

These recommendations includes implementing the following improvements to the Community Grants Program in time for the 2026 program launch:

• Council to identify and confirm 1-2 priority focus areas to ensure targeted impact and alignment with community needs.
• Limit eligibility to organizations with an operating budget under $100,000
• Limit eligibility to organizations directly impacting more than 100 residents annually through programs or services
• Limit eligibility to organizations directly offering programming and services on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis
• Limit eligibility to organizations that do not have a low-cost, subsidized lease agreement or an existing Multi-year Standing Grant Agreement with the City of Prince George
• Limit eligibility to organizations that demonstrate partnership with at least one other organization on an ongoing basis
• Introduce a Letter of Intent stage to streamline initial screening and reduce administrative burden for both applicants and staff
• Commit to allocating the full amount requested by each successful applicant, enhancing impact and reducing the need for partial funding decisions

Recommendations were also put forward regarding the City’s Multiyear Standing Grants Program.

It was recommended that Council approve transitioning the existing grant agreement holders to Standing Grant Agreements (Stream A) under the Multiyear Funding Grants Council Policy.

“All six of those organizations are funded annually through various operating budgets, we do not have a mechanism or a policy for administration to pull these out, and allow reports to Council or to provide Council a process to make any future decisions about this funding,” said Director of Civic Facilities and Events Andy Beesley.

“Most of these organizations, the funding’s in place and I don’t have a way, or the other Directors to bring this back to Council to look at each one of these. Moving them into the new grants policy will provide that precise mechanism.”

Beesley noted these organizations would be required to sign an agreement, which would require them to provide reports including metrics on the use of City funding and future funding requests, as well as providing Council the ability to make decisions on funding the organizations in the policy.