Cheshire County Grants
Cheshire County’s mission is to be value and service driven and its grants department delivers incredible value by offsetting the costs of various County services and expanding the services in the community by being a fiscal sponsor to area organizations. The greatest asset of the grants department is that it furthers the County’s mission by helping to meet unique and unmet needs of county residents by obtaining and managing grants and projects that would otherwise be unaffordable. Additionally, it connects non-profits to the knowledge and resources they need to support, enhance, or expand on the services they provide.
The grants department is staffed by a full-time grants manager and full-time grants assistant who oversee the fiscal and contractual obligations of all county grants and write and/or coordinate the application process of new grants. The grants department serves as a community resource to assist area non-profits in finding and writing grants. They continually forward funding opportunities to agencies looking to finance specific projects and programs.
When a funding need is presented, we carefully review the source, requirements, internal capacity of the organization to fulfill the programmatic outcomes, evaluation needs, etc., and determine if the goals of the grant align with the goals of the County. As fiscal sponsor, we do not implement the program, but we do manage the funds and adhere to the strict guidelines set forth by the funder.
Please contact the grants manager if your organization is interested in discussing a partnership with us as a fiscal sponsor, or if you would like assistance searching for or applying for grants.
Suzanne Bansley, MBA, GPC
Grants Manager, Cheshire County
603-355-3023 and sbansley@co.cheshire.nh.us
Grants Department Annual Report 2021
Cheshire County Grants Department delivers incredible value by offsetting the costs of County services and by expanding community services as a fiscal sponsor to area organizations. The Department managed 37 grant agreements in 2021 with a total award value of $13.7 million—including $2.8 million in new grant awards. The Department produced $3.7 million in revenue—including $137,878 in administrative fees. The Department accomplished this with only $136,289 in Department expenditures. The return on investment on grant revenue is 2,597%.
During 2021, the Grants Department worked on 22 grant applications to various funders; nine of which were awarded, four denied, two withdrawn, and four were pending a notice of award at year-end. New grants awarded for new projects included an Economic Development Administration (EDA) Economic Adjustment Assistance Program CARES Act Recovery Assistance grant to create a professional Monadnock Region brand and marketing campaign, a New Hampshire Bureau of Trails Recreational Trails Program grant to develop the Cheshire Rail Trail in Walpole, and a U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Assistance Drug Court Expansion grant to hire a full-time recovery coach for Cheshire County Drug Court.
New grants awarded for continuing projects include a U.S. Department of Justice Bulletproof Vest Partnership grant, a U.S. Department of Justice Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant to subscribe to mobile data terminals, a New Hampshire Department of Transportation Enhanced Mobility of Seniors and Individuals with Disabilities grant to provide transportation to seniors and individuals with disabilities, a New Hampshire Superior Court Drug Court Offender grant to operate Cheshire County Drug Court, and two grants from New Hampshire Department of Justice for a domestic violence prosecutor and victim/witness coordinator.
The System of Care Implementation grant is the County’s largest grant-funded program. In 2017, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration awarded the County $4 million to spend over 4 years (extended to 5 years) to improve the behavioral health outcomes of children and youth with serious emotional disturbance by building and engaging infrastructure capacity to create a comprehensive System of Care approach and implement wraparound. This grant ended on September 29, 2021. In 2020, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration awarded the County another $4 million to expand the geographic coverage of the Monadnock Region System of Care—now called Connected Families, NH—north into parts of Sullivan and Grafton counties and to expand its program services to include wraparound for children 0-5, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support for Behavioral Health in 18 schools, and expanded coverage of its high-fidelity home-based family therapy program. System of Care grant revenue in 2021 was $1,048,679.
During the first half of the year, the County fiscally sponsored three grants for the Greater Monadnock Public Health Network. One of those grants was from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services and bundles 11 grant programs into one grant agreement, and two of the grants were from the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation. After 14 years of fiscal sponsorship, Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth Hitchcock took over managing these grants directly through their Center for Population Health. The combined award value was $557,432 for SFY21. Year-end grant revenue was $266,012. These grants provided funding to host a regional public health network and align a range of public health and substance misuse prevention and related health promotion activities, as well as expand capacity of community programs for emergency preparedness and evacuation.
The County continued fiscal sponsorship of six grants for the Greater Monadnock Medical Reserve Corps, all from the National Association of County and City Health Officials. The combined award value was $66,570 and there was no grant revenue in 2021. These grants support a variety of capacity building projects.
In collaboration with the Monadnock Regional Coordinating Council for Community Transportation and Southwest Region Planning Commission, the County fiscally sponsored a grant from the New Hampshire Department of Transportation that passed through Cheshire County to three community organizations—Community Volunteer Transportation Company, Home Healthcare, Hospice & Community Services, and Keene Senior Center—to provide accessible transportation to seniors and individuals with disabilities. The SFY22-23 grant is $426,600 and includes $100,000 to create a full time regional mobility manager position (to be hired in 2022). Grant revenue in 2021 was $183,176.
New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority awards the County a Microenterprise Community Development Block Grant on an annual basis through a competitive grant application to provide training and technical assistance services to business development programs. The County sponsored three more Community Development Block Grants during 2021, two of which carried forward from 2020, and one was newly awarded in 2021. The total combined award value of these grants was $2,449,582 and 2021 revenue was $1,473,958. Southwest Region Planning Commission writes and administers these grants.
As well as writing and managing grants for the County and community organizations, the grants manager serves as a community resource to assist local non-profits in finding and writing grants. The grants manager continually forwards funding opportunities to agencies looking to finance operations or specific projects. In 2021, the County provided grant writing or research assistance to Cathedral of the Pines, a new charter school in development for at-risk teens, a potential child-parent visitation center, Friends of Public Art and Arts Alive, Marlborough’s Frost Free Library, MC2 local charter school, Monadnock Farm and Community Coalition, Winchester Learning Center, and the Town of Winchester.
Respectfully submitted by,
Suzanne Bansley, MBA, GPC
