June 30, 2021
Programs distribute $311,460 across region for pandemic recovery
The long-running Coover Regional grantmaking program is well known to nonprofits across central and southern Missouri, typically distributing hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to about 20 agencies and school districts serving rural communities through two competitive grant rounds. But with the COVID-19 pandemic creating unprecedented need across the entire region, the grantmaking tactic took a new approach for 2021.
The partnership between the Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Charitable Foundation, managed by Commerce Trust Company, and the Community Foundation of the Ozarks relied on the CFO’s network of regional affiliate foundations to distribute funds through the Coover Regional Recovery Grant Program. Thirty of the CFO’s regional affiliate foundations each received $10,000 to distribute to designated agencies or through separate grant rounds.
Ultimately, 115 nonprofit agencies, school districts, faith-based organizations and governmental entities received grants for pandemic-related needs. Several affiliate foundations supplemented their $10,000 with additional funds, bringing the final total for the program to $311,460.
The 30 regional affiliate foundations that received Coover funds to redistribute are:
- Ash Grove Community Foundation
- Aurora Area Community Foundation
- Barton County Community Foundation
- Bolivar Area Community Foundation
- Bourbon Community Foundation
- Cabool Community Foundation
- Cape Area Community Foundation
- Carthage Community Foundation
- Cassville Community Foundation
- Dallas County Community Foundation
- Douglas County Community Foundation
- El Dorado Springs Community Foundation
- Eldon Community Foundation
- Finley River Community Foundation
- Community Foundation of the Hermann Area Inc.
- Houston Community Foundation
- Joplin Regional Community Foundation
- Community Foundation of the Lake
- Marshfield Area Community Foundation
- Meramec Regional Community Foundation
- Nevada-Vernon County Community Foundation
- Ozark Foothills Regional Community Foundation
- Perry County Community Foundation
- Sarcoxie Community Foundation
- Ste. Genevieve County Community Foundation
- Stockton Community Foundation
- Community Foundation of Taney County
- Truman Lake Community Foundation
- Community Foundation of West Plains Inc.
- Willard Children's Charitable Foundation
“One of the benefits of the CFO’s affiliate network is the ability of local leaders to make decisions in the best interests of their own communities,” said Jill Reynolds, senior vice president at Commerce Trust. “Using leaders across rural Missouri to award Coover Charitable Foundation grant dollars has contributed to this partnership’s success in distributing more than $7 million since 2002.”
