Carthage 365 is a giving circle created by the Carthage Community Foundation. The vision is to mobilize a group of passionate, caring individuals to make a big impact on the needs of the Carthage community through collective giving.
A giving circle - a group of individuals that gather to discuss and decide on a charity or community project in Carthage to donate their combined $365/person donations to for a larger community impact.
The group does! They come together at an annual awareness “party” and vote on where the collective
gift should be distributed.
A dollar-a-day gift is the commitment, everyone gets a vote. If you choose, you can submit to be on the
steering committee that decides on the list of projects that are included for consideration to receive the
gift. All members are encouraged to invite friends to join.
Carthage Community Foundation has created a fund that holds the annual contributions for Carthage
365 until the annual awareness "party". Once the circle determines the nonprofit to receive that year's
gift, the gift is distributed, zeroing out the account and the next year's contributions grow the fund for the
next year.
The goal is to get our community excited about giving. Sometimes we don’t know where or how to give back or don’t think that our gift will be impactful. We hope that this group spurs excitement about giving back to the community by seeing the effects of a collective, larger gift.
On February 16, 2024, the first annual Carthage 365 voting night was held. Three local non-profits presented their grant requests to the voting members. Due to generous donations the night of the event, all three requests were honored in full. $6,000 was awarded to artCentral for low and no cost after school programming; $5,000 was awarded to Crosslines for back-to-school clothes, shoes, and haircuts; and $3,000 was awarded to Carthage Council on the Arts for a pocket park sculpture.
Planning is already underway for 2025.
Area 501(c)3 organizations and other IRS approved entities, such as civic, education or faith-based groups, serving the Carthage area, will be eligible to apply for the Carthage 365 grant round in January 2025.
