LA CROSSE, Wis. (WXOW) – The La Crosse Area Community Foundation is investing in the future of local nonprofits, awarding more than $370,000 through its 2025 Capacity Building Grant program.
The funding went to six area organizations, including two new recipients: The Good Fight Community Center and The Center: Seven Rivers LGBTQ Connection.
The newcomers will receive $60,000 this year, with the potential for continued funding over the next two years. The other recipients will receive a cut of the remaining $250,000 given.
The foundation’s Capacity Building Grant program, now in its second year, focuses on helping nonprofits strengthen internal systems and long-term sustainability.
Rather than funding new programs, the initiative aims to reinforce operational stability through staff development, strategic planning, and leadership support.
The La Crosse Area Community Foundation Impact Director, Lauren Journot, said the grants are designed to ensure organizations have the structure and support they need to thrive.
“Capacity building is a big term for building sustainability and structure within an organization,” Journot said. “It builds up the structure around an organization so that if the [executive director] leaves one day—because all nonprofit leaders will leave sometime—the organization isn’t dependent on them being there to survive.”
For The Good Fight Community Center, the grant will fund a comprehensive strategic plan to strengthen staff support and internal systems.
“Which will really help strengthen and optimize those internal structures and systems that will help to support our staff work-life balance and enhance our mission and ultimately expand it,” said The Good Fight Executive Director Amanda Worman-Holmgaard. “The mission being serving the region’s at-risk youth.”
The Center: Seven Rivers LGBTQ Connection will use its grant to enhance consistency and sustainability within the organization as it grows.
“That is our ultimate hope—to create more sustainable internal processes that we are able to really expand further out once we get those in place,” The Center’s executive director Shannon Raney said. “With this being a multi-year grant, we are really starting internally and then just kind of see where that develops in the future years. We have goals for the next few years, but we do expect those to kind of grow and change as time goes on.”
Four nonprofits that received funding last year also received a second round of grants this year.
Journot said the Foundation expects to continue offering the program in the years ahead as part of a multi-year effort to build stability across the nonprofit sector.