A few nonprofits have submitted applications to the city of Warsaw for American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds, but there’s still plenty of time for more to apply.
The deadline isn’t until Oct. 31, 2024.
“They’ve got a whole year to get it done,” Common Council President Jack Wilhite said in an interview Wednesday. “Now, they might have been confused when I said something about we had $90,000 this year and then $90,000 next year. That $90,000, if it doesn’t get spent this year, it’ll roll over into next year. We will spend the entire $180,000 for nonprofits with the ARPA money.”
ARPA money has to be approved and appointed for spending by the end of 2024, but doesn’t have to be spent until the end of 2026.
“They have a whole year to apply for it, and then they’ll have almost two years to complete their project. We have until the end of 2026 to pay out all the funds, as long as we’ve got them under contract by the end of next year,” Wilhite stated.
The grant application and process can be found at City Hall and on the city’s website at https://www.warsaw.in.gov/DocumentCenter/View/4679/ARPA-GRANT-APPLICATION-PDF?bidId=
Wilhite said it includes the standards the nonprofits have to meet. “I hope they pay attention to that because we wanted them to give us proof of the fact that their governing body or their board or whatever has looked at this application and said, ‘Yes, this is what we want to put it towards is this project.’ We don’t want just one person coming from their group with a wish list. We want to know that they’ve thought it through and they know they’re going to have 20% to put down on it, and that is part of their application process,” he said.
That’s something that the nonprofits may find to be different and new, Wilhite stated, but is something that the council felt like was extremely important in order to divvy the ARPA funds out.
“The mayor said it many times: It’s not easy giving away money, and I found out just how hard it is,” he said.
The council is anticipating to support projects that are in the range of $5,000 to $50,000.
“There may be a project that comes through that they may want more, and we may find that it’s a bang-up project that we can do that, but we’re anticipating between $5,000 and $50,000. We would like to keep them under $50,000 so we can spread it out among a number of nonprofits,” Wilhite said.
The city will grant up to 80% of a nonprofit’s project. For example, if a project costs $10,000, the city could grant up to $8,000 of that cost. If the project costs approximately $62,000, the city could grant up to about $50,000.
Nonprofits that apply for the funding have to at least serve the city of Warsaw. Wilhite said the Animal Welfare League of Kosciusko County is in Pierceton, but it serves the city of Warsaw, so they could be considered for a grant.
“And it is for capital expenditures and capital projects. In other words, if they’ve got a project or they’ve got to buy a piece of equipment or something like that. It is available for that type of stuff,” he said.
The grant funds are not for operations.
“We’re really hoping that what this does is it helps jumpstart some of their fundraising efforts, because if they can come to their donors and say, ‘Look, for every dollar you match, we’ll get four. For every $20 you give, we get $80 from the city. Hopefully, that will generate more donors to give,” Wilhite said.
He said the city has learned about matching grants from those Warsaw has received. One matching grant for the airport required the city to come up with 5% of a project’s costs, the state put in 5% and the federal grant provided the remaining 90%.
“That’s a real win-win, and so we try to leverage those as much as we can, and, hopefully, these folks will understand that as well - how to multiply their dollars,” Wilhite concluded.
The city was awarded $3.433 million in ARPA funds. In 2022, they spent just under $1 million; in 2023, $1.8 million was allocated; in 2024, there was another $323,000; and in 2025, there’s another $97,500.