Women’s Fund of Omaha 2017 Grants

Fall 2017, News

BY NDUULWA KOWA

The Women’s Fund annually awards grants to local nonprofit agencies making a positive impact on the lives of Omaha’s women and girls. Here are this year’s recipients:

EXCELLENCE IN SERVICE TO WOMEN AND GIRLS GRANTS

The Excellence in Service to Women and Girls Grant is intended to recognize and encourage excellence in programming for women and girls that aims to achieve our shared vision of a community where every woman and girl can reach her full potential.

Over the past 10 years, we’ve awarded $250,000 to community organizations through the Excellence in Service to Women and Girls Grant.

In celebration of the past decade, we will provide four excellence awards totaling $100,000. With this being our final year awarding this grant, we want to recognize organizations providing excellent programming in our priority areas: Economic Security, Leadership Development, Sexual Literacy and Violence Against Women.

This year’s Excellence in Service to Women and Girls Awards go to:

• Lutheran Family Services, International Center of the Heartland—$25,000—Helps new Americans, refugees, immigrants, asylees, and victims of international human trafficking achieve self-sufficiency in the Omaha community. The center helps women and families access basic needs and achieve security and employment.

• Justice for Our Neighbors-Nebraska, Legal Services for Battered Women—$25,000—Dedicated to improving immigrant women’s quality of life and reducing their risk factors for domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and other gender-based violence with free, high-quality legal services.

• Nebraska Children’s Home Society, Teen Chat—$25,000—Teen Chat offers educational classes and monthly support groups in a non-threatening environment focusing on STD education, sexual literacy, pregnancy prevention and the development of a healthy sense of personal well-being.

• College of Saint Mary, African American Summer Academy and Latina Summer Academy—$25,000—The African American Summer Academy and Latina Summer Academy are separate residential summer experiences at College of Saint Mary dedicated to inspiring underserved minority girls to attend college and providing them with the resources to do so.

BE THE CHANGE GRANT

Two organizations—Lutheran Family Services and College of Saint Mary—have been invited to present their program in a video vignette at the annual Lead the Change luncheon. Attendees will vote to determine the recipient of an additional $10,000 in funding.

ADOLESCENT HEALTH PROJECT GRANTS

The Women’s Fund will invest more than $3.6 million through the Adolescent Health Project to develop systems that will increase the availability of free testing, free treatment, and free prevention services for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The following organizations have been awarded grants to support their STD-related programs:

• Charles Drew Health Center, Inc. (CDHC)

• Douglas County Health Department

• The Fred Leroy Health and Wellness Center

• Nebraska AIDS Project (NAP)

• Nebraska Medicine at Girls, Inc.

• Nebraska Urban Indian Health

Coalition, Inc. (NUIHC)

• North Omaha Area Health, Inc. (NOAH)

• OneWorld Community Health Centers

• Planned Parenthood of the Heartland

• University of Nebraska at Omaha

TRAFFICKING/DOMESTIC VIOLENCE GRANTS

The Women’s Fund of Omaha is bringing together a cross-sector network of survivors, law enforcement, service providers, and community stakeholders to advance the ultimate goal of decreasing sex trafficking, domestic violence, and sexual assault. This transformational network operates by exemplifying three key concepts: survivor leadership and voice, authentic collaboration and relationship building, and meaningful use of data.

To advance this work, the Women’s Fund of Omaha has invested in the following organizations:

• Coalition on Human Trafficking—$25,000—Provide hotel and motel education on human trafficking, ensuring staff know how to realize it is happening, how to recognize the signs, and how to respond appropriately.

• Nebraska Alliance of Child Advocacy Centers—$90,000—Create and establish a youth response to human trafficking throughout Nebraska, including development of training, protocols and policies.

In an effort to assess and enhance how our community responds to domestic violence, we are awarding a grant to the following organization:

• Survivors Rising—$22,750—Provides an avenue for survivor leadership to inform system coordination and policy change, and to create public awareness through shared experiences. W

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