Columbus gave $1 million in crime prevention grants. Who got money and why others didn’t?
When the Columbus Council approved in August a total of $1 million in grants to 42 local organizations recommended by the Columbus Office of Crime Prevention, that was only part of the story.
Many organizations who were awarded money didn’t get what they had requested, and a handful of applications were rejected, according to information obtained by the Ledger-Enquirer from Columbus’ Office of Crime Prevention.
Here’s what to know about the grants and how they’ll be used.
Who got the 2024 Columbus Crime Prevention grants
Seth Brown, the Columbus crime prevention director, said these organizations got money from Columbus for crime prevention:
Better Work Columbus: requested $22,159, granted $15,000, for a trade school program.
Boys & Girls Clubs of the Chattahoochee Valley: requested $30,000, granted $5,000, for a delinquency prevention initiative in conjunction with the juvenile court system.
Boyz 2 Men: requested $45,000, granted $20,000, for mentoring juveniles ages 6-17 in the Muscogee County School District to reduce truancy, drug abuse and delinquency.
Building Toward Wellness: requested $30,282, granted $10,000, to reduce human trafficking by educating leaders and mentors about the warning signs.
Children 1st: requested $20,000, granted $10,000, for mentoring juveniles ages 6-18 in the Muscogee County School District to reduce truancy, drug abuse and delinquency.
Clement Arts: requested $24,500, granted $15,000, for training volunteers how to help vulnerable children and families identified by child welfare workers as needing more social support.
Columbus Community Center: requested $31,000, granted $31,000, to provide afterschool care, mentoring and tutoring for juveniles ages 5-11, primarily from seven Title I elementary schools in south Columbus.
Columbus Community Orchestra: requested $7,425, granted $5,000, to educate juveniles through arts integration and mentoring in Muscogee County schools.
Columbus Dream Center: requested $25,000, granted $25,000, to identify and redirect families to programming that can restore their household and prevent crisis.
Columbus Regional Tennis Association: requested $30,000, granted $20,000, for the Tennis Works program, which teaches life skills to underserved and at-risk youth through tennis instruction and academic enrichment.
Columbus Scholars: requested $22,252, granted $10,000, to educate juveniles about high school graduation, SAT/ACT prep and college entrance.
Columbus Symphony Orchestra: requested $20,000, granted $15,000, to educate juveniles through arts integration and mentoring at Downtown, Brewer and Dawson elementary schools.
Columbus Technical College: requested $297,875, granted $135,000, to pay for screening and training to help nonviolent felons gain employment and reduce recidivism.
East Carver Heights Boxwood Soccer: requested $25,000, granted $25,000, to provide mentoring and coaching for the at-risk population in the Boxwood Recreation Center neighborhood.
Emmanuel Prep: requested $20,000, granted $20,000, for after-school mentoring, critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork.
FAITH (Feeding, Accepting, Inspiring, The Hurting): requested $63,000, granted $20,000, for mentoring juveniles ages 6-17 in the Muscogee County School District to reduce truancy, drug abuse and delinquency.
Flourishing Ladies: requested $75,000, granted $50,000, to provide after-school tutoring, mentoring and advanced help for children in need, identified by their negative behavior. Also will provide parenting workshops, interventions and alternative solutions to student suspensions by working with schools.
Focus Program: requested $40,000, granted $40,000, to mentor and tutor juveniles in Muscogee County, educating them in how to control emotions, handle frustration and overcome setbacks by teaching life skills through basketball and chess.
Girls Inc.: requested $45,640, granted $10,000, to provide more computers for a college prep program to help girls in grades 1-11.
Hope Harbour: requested $15,000, granted $15,000, for community outreach program to provide crisis intervention and support services for domestic violence victims.
Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity: requested $47,637, granted $25,000, for mentoring juveniles ages 6-17 in the Muscogee County School District to reduce truancy, drug abuse and delinquency.
Let’s Grow STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) Expo: requested $75,000, granted $10,000, for an expo, after-school mentoring and critical-thinking exercises for juveniles during the school year.
Let’s Grow STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) Race: requested $55,000, granted $10,000, for a mini-car race, after-school mentoring and critical-thinking exercises for juveniles during the school year.
Life Bridge: requested $50,000, granted $20,000, for a mentoring and tutoring program designed to identify and redirect Muscogee County juveniles away from potential delinquent and dangerous behavior.
Literacy Alliance: requested $30,000, granted $20,000, to provide literacy programming and tutoring for adults and juveniles in Columbus.
Micah’s Promise: requested $80,000, granted $20,000, for programs that educate about the dangers of human trafficking, prevent children from becoming victims of human trafficking, increase opportunities to rescue people from human trafficking and increase opportunities to restore victims of human trafficking.
Muscogee County Office of Dispute Resolution: requested $17,000, granted $17,000, to run the Legitimation Station, which helps establish relationships between fathers and their children born out of wedlock.
NFOAAY (Neighborhoods Focused on African-American Youth): requested $106,863, granted $15,000, for after-school tutoring, mentoring and advanced help for children in need at the Warren Williams and Elizabeth Canty public housing complexes.
Omega Lambda: requested $68,300, granted $25,000, for mentoring and educating at-risk youth from high-poverty and high-crime areas in Muscogee County through one-on-one interactions with organization members who provide enrichment sessions, SAT/ACT prep and school visits.
Open Door Community House: requested $15,000, granted $15,000, to help implement Mathews Promise Academy, an after-school and summer program providing ages 5-17 a safe and structured program, focusing on academic and social development to empower children to choose alternative paths away from crime and to break the cycle of generational poverty.
Overflo Outreach Ministries: requested $50,000, granted $15,000, to mentor at-risk youth through one-on-one interactions and cosmetology training.
Right from the Start: requested $20,000, granted $20,000, to create a parenting program for at-risk families at South Columbus United Methodist Church to help parents develop better relationships with their children.
Second Chance Works: requested $187,000, granted $65,000, for after-school tutoring, mentoring and advanced help for children in need, identified by their negative behavior. Also will provide parenting workshops and interventions to help create alternative solutions to student suspensions by working with schools.
Service for Humanity: requested $31,725, granted $15,000, to train and mentor boys ages 12-18, equipping them with critical skills to help them along the journey to manhood by establishing positive relationships with school administrators, teachers, parents and fellow students, creating a culture of success at school.
Springer Opera House: requested $23,985, granted $10,000, to educate and enlighten juveniles and their families through arts integration and mentoring in neighborhood programs targeting families in south and east Columbus.
Teen Advisors: requested $49,500, granted $5,000, for mentoring juveniles ages 5-10 in elementary schools through the Ignite program to reduce truancy and delinquency.
Truth Spring: requested $50,000, granted $50,000, for a trade school to empower residents of North Highland.
Turn Around Columbus: requested $42,692, granted $40,000, to train and mentor children in Muscogee County through the Victory Garden project and wrap-around support program.
Urban League of the River Valley: requested $125,000, granted $40,000, to train and mentor children in Muscogee County, empowering and assisting minorities, disadvantaged and under-served citizens and low-income families in obtaining social and economic equality.
Whole Person Ministries: requested $45,890, granted $10,000, for the Men Act This Way program, mentoring males in grades 3-5 at schools identified as needing improvement, and mentoring males ages 9-17 in poverty-stricken areas of midtown Columbus.
Wright Fitness: requested $18,148, granted $17,000, to provide 20 students with scholarships into the Wright Way Boxing Club, targeting youth in high crime and poverty areas, specifically the Warren Williams and Wilson public housing complexes.
Young Life: requested $20,000, granted $15,000, for mentoring juveniles ages 14-18 at Carver, Jordan and Hardaway high schools to reduce truancy, drug abuse and delinquency.
Selection criteria
Brown explained the criteria the board uses to make its funding recommendations to the council.
“There are mandatory requirements that programs have to meet to even get to the Board, 501 status, active Board, detailed budget and so forth,” Brown told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email. “The Board then reviews each applicant individually through use of the paper document submitted and the video interview.
“They discuss as a group the pros and cons, as well as determining how the program will impact crime over time.”
This year’s applications came from 46 organizations, and the board decided to grant money to 42 of them, Brown said. The total of $1 million in grants is funded by revenue from the 1% Local Option Sales Tax voters approved in 2008.
Since the grants started 15 years ago, the annual total was limited to $750,000. But this year, Brown said, the council approved Mayor Skip Henderson’s recommendation to increase the cap by $250,000.
Here are the Columbus Crime Prevention Board members who decided the allocations for the grants proposed to the council:
- Danny Arencibia, chairman, appointed by the mayor
- Angela Vickers, the Muscogee County School District representative, appointed by the mayor.
- Rocky Marsh, the Fort Moore representative, appointed by the mayor.
- Columbus Police Department Assistant Chief Joyce Dent-Fitzpatrick, the public safety representative, appointed by the mayor.
- Lane Jimmerson, appointed by the council
- Marcus Gibson, appointed by the council.
- Erika Cottingham, appointed by the council.
Rejected applications
These are the four organizations that applied for a 2024 Columbus crime prevention grant but weren’t approved for funding this year:
Center Stage: requested $80,000 for homeschool and after-school educational programs to support at-risk youth, including those with disabilities, as well as their parents.
Gift of the Ride: requested $50,000 for expanding access to financial literacy workshops for at-risk youth and people with criminal backgrounds.
Karisma: requested $50,000 for mobile outreach program to teach life skills to at-risk youth.
MidTown Inc.: requested $17,000 to facilitate the formation of new neighborhood watch groups and reactivate former ones; design, host and maintain a webpage for each group on the MidTown website; schedule, host and facilitate quarterly meetings between neighborhood representatives and city officials.
Brown explained why the board decided to not grant those organizations any money.
“The programs are always well thought out,” he said, “but when not approved, they fall under one or more of the below issues:
- “Cost per participant is too high.
- “They are too heavy in executive personnel cost. We typically only fund programming that has personnel cost directly related to the actual participants, (teachers or mentors).
- “The idea is very vague in how it will be achieved.
- “The program doesn’t have the necessary human capital to be successful.
- “The program would work and could be defined as ‘Crime Prevention,’ but it doesn’t impact the most crucial areas or issues we are currently dealing with in our community.
- “The idea is less about preventing crime and more about getting the program started through using the grant almost like a small-business grant.
- “They have no way to remotely measure the outcome.
- “The program is more than we can afford and cutting it too severely would cause it to be ineffective.
- “The projected outcomes are unachievable.”
This story was originally published December 5, 2024 at 11:06 AM.
