Musgrave Foundation awards $1.1M in grants to SGF nonprofits (2024)

The staff and volunteers at Ozarks Food Harvest want to grow both food and gardeners. Almost $200,000 in grant money will help cultivate that goal.

The group was one of 15 Springfield metro area nonprofit groups that received grant money Monday to benefit their missions. Members of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks announced $1,165,923 in grants funded by the Jeannette L. Musgrave Foundation and U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management.

In the case of Ozarks Food Harvest, the two grants it received will go toward expanding and improving garden beds with its Full Circle Gardens, and toward purchasing a cargo van large enough to handle significant deliveries of food.

The group connects farmers who have extra produce with agencies helping to feed people in need. By improving garden beds, they can safely teach children how to grow food, said Alexa Poindexter, director of Full Circle Gardens.

“In a good year we grow 14,000 pounds of produce with volunteers, and specifically with kids, we host tons of field trips,” Poindexter said. “Being able to get these beds renovated to increase safety and make sure the stability is there, to keep that garden growing so that we can work with kids and teach them, is incredibly important.”

The grants were awarded as part of a series of multi-year grant programs created in 2021 by the Musgrave Foundation, said Becky Bonner, a trust officer with U.S. Bank. The latest round were themed under “Opportunities to Thrive,” and place an emphasis on helping already-running agencies boost their services even more.

“We do a lot of smaller grants in the fall,” Bonner said. “But there was some interest among the committee members to think a bit more long-term.”

Other programs were granted funding for projects in student citizenship and helping foster families. If agencies meet renewal guidelines, they can receive additional grants in ensuing years. Total grant awards for all three programs could ultimately exceed $1.8 million.

In addition, an invitation-only grant process was opened for funding capital improvements. Agencies were prioritized according to how well they met Musgrave’s focus on health care and mental health, as well as improving quality of life for low-income communities, children and babies, and the unsheltered.

“Mrs. Musgrave certainly funded capital projects. It was something that during her life she certainly supported,” said Bridget Dierks, vice president of programs for CFO. “That was a thing that the foundation had gotten away from over the course of time, so we wanted to work toward getting back to that work.”

Ozarks Food Harvest received $131,122 for structural and safety improvements, as well as a capacity expansion, for Full Circle Gardens under the Opportunities to Thrive program. It also received $67,145 in the capital improvements program for a cargo van it can use to transport larger loads of food.

Other recipients for Opportunities to Thrive grants include:

• Boys and Girls Clubs of Springfield: $70,000 to support organizational restructuring, talent investment and development strategy.
• GLO Center: $55,000 to support the salary of the community services specialist, a new role that will create programs and partnerships to fill service gaps for LGBTQ people.
• Ozarks Literacy Council: $36,432 to hire a part-time social media manager and to update its website, donor software and email platform.
• Springfield Community Gardens: $19,924 to hire a strategic planning consultant, purchase food hub management software and provide farmers with agricultural training.

Total grant awards in this category can surpass $556,000 over the three-year period.

Student Citizenship grants, in the second year of their awarding, were given to:

• History Museum on the Square: $70,000 to connect K-12 students with the past and present through experiential learning. The project’s goals are to help students become informed voters and participatory citizens; comprehend current social issues and challenges; and engage in their civic responsibilities as adults with civility and passion.
• Leadership Springfield: $62,000 to support the Civic Leadership Access Program in partnership with Parkview High School. This includes a multi-step civics education program culminating in a participatory learning experience in Washington, D.C.
• Springfield Daily Citizen: $25,000 to increase civic engagement among young people by fostering engaged and thoughtful consumption of media from diversified media outlets.

These total grant awards will exceed $539,000 when the final grants are presented next year.

The grant recipients and final-year amounts for the Foster Families program include:

• Council of Churches of the Ozarks: $50,000 to develop a new case management program for biological parents whose children are currently in state custody.
• FosterAdopt Connect: $50,000 to provide advocacy and support for biological parents, and mental health support for biological parents, foster families and children in foster care through the YouthConnect Center, Fostering Prevention and Community Connections Youth Project programs.
• KVC Missouri (formerly Great Circle): $50,000 to expand the Therapeutic Foster Care program, which provides family support and training for the physical, emotional and social needs of children and youth in a supportive foster care situation.
• St. John’s Chapel United Church of Christ: $39,800 to support the addition of a Family Connection coordinator and trauma-informed training for additional Family Connection site locations, previously managed by the Connecting Grounds.

Other recipients of capital improvement grants include:

• Child Advocacy Center: $188,000 for strategic planning and consulting fees related to a future facility, and a staff site visit to Project Harmony in Omaha.
• Council of Churches of the Ozarks: $100,000 to support the Levell Up Capital Campaign for its new facility on East Division Street.
• Dickerson Park Zoo: $97,000 to re-roof and renovate the Jeannette L. Musgrave Zoo Education Facility and purchase a cargo van for its outreach program.
• Presbyterian Children’s Homes & Services: $54,500 to renovate and update the plumbing at Ashley House, a transitional living facility for youth in foster care.

The Jeannette L. Musgrave Foundation is a private charitable foundation managed by U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management and administered by the Community Foundation of the Ozarks. Since 1983, the Musgrave Foundation has granted more than $21 million to nonprofits in Springfield and southwest Missouri. It is named for Jeannette Musgrave, the wife of Dr. Edward F. Musgrave, who inherited a sizable sum of money from his family’s oil leases in Oklahoma and Texas.

The Musgrave Foundation has a grantmaking advisory committee made up of Rob Baird, Emily Bowen-Marler, Thomas J. Carlson, Ferba Lofton, Danny Perches, Peggy Riggs and Thomas Slaight. Carlson abstained from the selection committee because he also serves as the chair of the Springfield Daily Citizen’s Board of Directors.

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks is southern Missouri’s largest public charitable foundation serving donors, nonprofit partners and more than 50 affiliate foundations with assets totaling $427 million as of June 30, 2023. The CFO’s mission is to improve the quality of life for everyone in central and southern Missouri through resource development, community grantmaking, collaboration and public leadership.