By Matthew Jennings, Hardin County Community Foundation President, and Bryan Marshall, Executive Director

The community may notice a measurable increase in Hardin County Community Foundation grants awarded versus our announcement of available funds in February. After the announcement to award $227,000 in grants this spring, the Board of Trustees revisited our allocation methodology that we have used since inception of the foundation and decided to make a revision. The resulting change in available funds increased by $140,000 to $367,000.

In our early days and as we grew into a foundation of scale, we kept our calculation for grant funding very conservative to protect the assets of the foundation and to ensure that even in a down year, we would have funds to grant. After our analysis was completed, we decided as a Board to increase the spend limit and shorten the rolling average asset size used in our methodology to better reflect our more rapid growth in the last several years.

This revision, beginning with grants awarded in 2025, will allow for a greater return of investment income to our community while ensuring our financial stability moving forward. This may not be the case every year depending on historical portfolio performance but due to several strong years in a row the resulting increase for this year will be very beneficial to our charitable organizations in Hardin County.

Community feedback is important to our Board, and we are listening and making changes as we grow and adapt within the confines of what a foundation is allowed to do with its finances. Several of our funds are designated for very specific uses while others are unrestricted and can be awarded to local organizations at our grant committee’s discretion.  The committee spends a considerable amount of time reviewing and vetting the grant process and to ensure that they are fair in disbursing funds throughout the community for many variations of projects and to be geographically balanced.