ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
This summer, the Western Kansas Community Foundation conducted its survey initiative, “Our Community, Our Future,” conducted in Liberal, Hugoton, Lakin and Cimarron.
This month, the foundation is launching forums for the survey, which was closed in July, and WKCF Community Development Coordinator Bailey Sater said the survey was initiated to assist the foundation in gaining a deeper understanding of local priorities, goals and challenges. She added the initiative signals a new strategy for WKCF in its efforts to serve Southwest Kansas.
“The survey is intended to help us get a better view of the priorities of the Liberal community through some questions,” she said. “We ask you how you feel about your community? What are some priorities do you think we should focus on? It’s intended to give us insight and have the community itself guide the direction of the funding we will offer.”
Forums for the four communities are scheduled throughout September, with a forum scheduled for Sept. 17 in Liberal, and Sater said the events are followups to the survey to elaborate on the answers received in the survey.
“It’s really an opportunity to elaborate and go into further detail on some of those things people in Liberal want to see and want to focus on and guide that into an opportunity to provide funding to one of those causes,” she said.
With the forums, WKCF plans to bring together people from various sectors, including non-profits, businesses, health care, government, education and the public to review results and collaborate on priorities that have emerged from the survey.
The forums are open to all residents of the respective communities including employees and students. Following the forums, communities will write grant applications throughout October, with funding being dispersed starting Nov. 1 and received in November.
Sater said the idea for the forums is to allow priority area popups and community organizations to apply for grants.
“We’ll be there to help guide them through the application process so the funding can make a larger impact rather than several small ones,” she said.
As for the “Our Community, Our Future” survey itself, Sater said she felt it went well, and good responses were received from the four communities.
“It is our first year doing anything like this as a community foundation and in the community of Liberal as far as the history and our relationship with the community goes,” she said. “It was a learning process. We learned as we went, who to talk to, how to distribute the survey.”
Sater said WKCF intends to continue the survey in future years, and she is optimistic about the amount of responses the foundation will receive next year.
“At this point, I’ve built up quite a big network of individuals to talk to,” she said. “We’re going to start a little bit earlier next year so we can get some of those students involved. I’m confident next year, we’ll get even more responses and build upon the foundation we’re building this year.”
To inspire residents to take collective action, WKCF will provide a new funding opportunity that will address a unique solution to one of the issues identified by residents both in Liberal and the other three communities in the survey. Sater emphasized, however, there is not competition between those towns.
“Each community gets its own unique opportunity in addition to our regular grant cycles,” she said. “The funding we will be offering during this community forum for a single project is $15,000. How to allocate that will largely depend upon the community discussions that happens in these forums. The idea is we offer $15,000 to go towards one of the priorities identified in the surveys and the community discussions. It’s unique in that it’s something only Liberal, only Cimarron, only Hugoton and only Lakin can apply for, and it relates to the survey itself. That allocation is specifically for a project for that community.”
With grant money being received by year’s end, Sater said grant projects will begin being implemented in 2025.
“Depending on the project and who’s spearheading it on a local level, results from that will be seen through that organization,” she said.
Sater said projects could focus on anything, including child care needs such as purchasing equipment or outfitting a facility to meet guidelines from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
“That is something that, after we disperse the funding, is taken up by the organization that applied for the funding,” she said. “We’ll be there to help them with followup.”
The Liberal forum will facilitated by Liberal Area Coalition for Families President Kay Burtzloff, who said the gathering is a great opportunity for Liberal residents to brainstorm about the future of their town.
“Liberal is full of amazing people and organizations, and I’m excited to see what ideas we can come with,” she said.
Sater said one of the most helpful parts of the survey has been the network of people WKCF leaders has been connecting with in each of the communities.
“You think you know who to talk to in a community about getting things done, but there’s so many nuances,” she said. “Compared to a year ago, we know up to 30 to 50 individuals in each of these communities, maybe not a personal level, but on an introductory level. We’d love to follow up with that and keep nurturing those relationship so that in the future when we work with these communities, we know exactly who to talk to to get things done, and they know who to talk to to come for funding or community projects.”
Sater said the “Our Community, Our Future” initiative was birthed from a desire for WKCF to be more of a regional foundation instead of just centered on its home in Garden City.
“We really want to approach this on a level as a partner to each community,” she said. “In the meetings themselves, we’re going to be there to organize it. We’re going to be to help run it and fund it, but the meeting is really led locally by a local leader, Kay Burtzloff, with discussion directed by locals. This community forum is an opportunity for a locally driven grant project.”
Sater said WKCF takes a different approach than many community foundations across the country which announce funding and ask organization leaders to meet them for it.
“We’re here as a partner, and Kay Burtzloff is a partner in that,” she said. “We want to be here to support the organizations that are already existing and work together towards the goals some of these communities have.”
Liberal’s community forum will be from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 17 in Room SW229 C/D at Seward County Community College at 1801 N. Kansas Ave. in Liberal.
Interested participants can RSVP by emailing
For more information, contact
