Nonprofits Include in COVID Relief Grants

Nonprofits Include in COVID Relief Grants

America spent an insane amount of money at the federal level when COVID struck the nation last year. There were three different instances of the federal government passing spending bills well in excess of a trillion dollars, which meant that America has spent in nearly two years what it usually spends spread out over a dozen. The states got billions of dollars through the CARES Act to distribute how they wanted, and the federal government was also offering a lot of grants. Though not very many of these grants were aimed at nonprofits doing charitable work in local areas around the nation. Most of their money had to come by way of charity, as grants were very limited. Texas is seeking to change that now by rolling out a grant initiative for only nonprofits educators in the area.

This is a relief grant program coming from Humanities Texas. This state-based organization is seeking to offer relief grants to nonprofit organizations that have faced financial hardship associated with COVID. A lot of people and organizations who fund grant initiatives don't always realize the toll it takes on people running nonprofits to stay afloat. Just because the organization is a nonprofit doesn't mean that workers still don't earn salaries. They're not often operated just by volunteers. The people who control the nonprofits and who do the day to day work still have rent to pay and mouths to feed like everyone else. So, these nonprofits need a lot of money to be able to contribute to their communities. It's just that they're not companies declaring profits.

The National Endowment of the Humanities is going to be handling most of the funding here, as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, and in order to be eligible to receive one of these grants, a Texas nonprofit must be recognized by having a DUNS number and able to prove that they're offering various humanities programming to citizens around the area.

These relief grants are important because they're primarily meant to cover the nonprofits' operating costs, which are greatly increasing now that inflation has pounded the American economy harder than it has since the 1970s. It's not expected that these grants are going to enable or empower these nonprofits to increase helping anyone else directly with the funds, but rather they're meant to help the nonprofits remain open. The grants are available for these organizations in amounts of $12,000 and $20,000, which depends entirely on the size of the organization.

Grants Drying Up Quickly

The well is quickly running dry on this type of funding, and eventually it's going to be in the hands of private companies and charities to hand out these grants. The fact of the matter is that the federal government is greatly over-extended with the money they're handing out to people already. With billions spent on immigration, billions more handed to states, and school budgets increasing by billions to get remote learning materials, the federal government is practically tapped out, unless they pass another spending bill.

The latest trillion-dollar-plus bill passed by the government is aimed at infrastructure, and of course the typical "pork" pet projects of different people who supported, sponsored and voted for the bill. Though the point is that there wasn't any additional money in the infrastructure bill for these sorts of grants, so they're quickly drying up, and no longer are states going to be able to tap federal funds in order to hand out relief grants.

A lot of criticism has been levied at the government over these past few months, claiming that more money is being wasted than is being spend. Though for people who pay attention to how government spends its money, this is nothing new at all. If an item costs a dollar to buy, the government figures out a way to spend $10 on it. That's just how it works, which is very unfortunate for citizens of the nation who desperately need more relief grants to keep their businesses and organizations afloat.

These Texas Humanities relief grants are being given to organizations who are responsible for pushing education, mainly. This is another area where they're being criticized, as they're not going to help people pay rent or buy food, but instead are going to help people learn about gender studies and art history. Many Texans believe there are much better ways to spend money, but pretty soon it will not matter, as these grants are going to dry up entirely.