ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
In an effort to better understand how communities think and feel and to provide a better picture of their wants and needs, in 2024, the Western Kansas Community Foundation launched the “”Our Community Our Future”” benchmark initiative in four Southwest Kansa communities, including Liberal.
WKCF Program and Marketing Director Stacie Hahn said the goal of the initiative is to learn what residents in each community view as their highest needs.
As part of “Our Community Our Future”, Hahn said an assessment survey is conducted, and after results are obtained, the hope of WKCF officials is to better help provide funding to address community needs.
The initiative is currently in its second year of implementation, and in addition to Liberal, forums recently took place in Lakin, Hugoton and Cimarron to allow residents in those towns to see hat the survey results were.
Hahn said those who attended the forums were also asked many questions about the survey.
“Do these survey results represent accurately what you think are needs for the community?” she said. “How do you see this as needs for the community? What sorts of programs or issues do you see that relate to these categories in the survey results?”
Likewise, Hahn said the forums were aimed to get community members’ thoughts about capitalizing on funding provided by WKCF and how they may apply those funds and address needs.
“With these initiatives, we have a pool of $15,000 for each of the four communities we want to provide grant funding to address some sort of need that’s in the community as trying to make a bigger impact in those areas of need,” she said. “It was to gather people from the community and asked if they agreed with the survey results, to share those survey results and see what some possible steps forward might look like.”
“Our Community Our Future” is part of a three-year program scheduled to run through 2026. Hahn said the initial run of the initiative has gone well, and the program looks to be continued past next year.
“We saw more survey responses this year in all of the communities than what we had last year,” she said. “With all of the community forums we hosted, members who were present from the community did feel the survey responses were pretty true to what they experience in the community.”
As far as Liberal is concerned, Hahn said although the response from the community was a low percentage of the population, that response came from people with diverse backgrounds and perspectives.
Hahn said WKCF leaders are working on ways to get surveys out to more people more effectively and how to community the value of survey input and what it could mean.
WKCF is based in Finney County, and though many of its donors traditionally have come from that county, Hahn said the foundation is seeing an exponential increase in grant requests from the other counties it serves.
“We serve 15 counties in this corner of the state, and we have always served 15 counties since we were founded,” she said. “In the most recent years, we have seen increases in the requests that are coming from those other counties.”
Helping in that regard, Hahn said, is an increase in getting information about opportunities WKCF provides for funding.
“Getting our name out and recognition out in those communities to try to make connections with potential donors to support your areas and the non-profits that are providing services in the various communities we serve is starting to pick up a little bit,” she said.
At this point, Hahn said surveys and forums have been completed, and she explained what happens next for the four communities.
“The next step for each of the communities is to figure out what they think their area of need they could effectively create a program around or they could effectively try to work on and to have a non-profit or charitable entity in each of those communities submit a grant request to the foundation to access that $15,000 pool of funding for the community,” she said.
From that point, Hahn said communities would utilize awarded grant funds to help with projects over the course of the next year.
“We would start again next year with a new survey, same questions being asked, but finding out how maybe perceptions have changed in the community or if the same needs are at the same level and hopefully getting more involved and following the same cycle with the survey, the community forums and the final grant opportunities for this initiative next year,” she said.
Scheduled to end its first run in late 2026, Hahn said what will become of “Our Community Our Future” is unknown beyond that time.
“We don’t know what will happen, if we will continue with the same communities or if we’ll move on to other communities,” she said. “This opportunity is actually grant funding for the community foundation, so it also depends on whether we have access to that grant funding from our grantor as well.”
Survey results for both 2024 and 2025 are available on WKCF’s Web site, www.wkcf.org, under the “Our Work” section. Hahn said these results are being used as a guiding light to determine if submitted grant applications will be impactful in addressing priority areas of need for communities.
“Each of the grant applications, we’ve ranked based on survey responses all of the individual areas of need for the community, and we’ll be evaluating when we get those applications in certain programs, how high they are in that list of priority needs or if it’s less of a need for the community and if there are other requests that are maybe a higher need according to the community survey responses,” she said.
As for the remainder of 2025, Hahn said a major part of WKCF’s focus will be centered on the annual Match Day fundraising campaign which helps agencies with endowed funding through the foundation.
“Last year, we had about 50 agencies who participated, and we’re anticipating around that many again this year,” she said. “That is a fundraising campaign that has been paired with a matching contribution. This year, we’re going to have a match pool of $150,000 we provide as a proportionate match on the donations that are received.”
Based on the total number of donations that come in through the entire event, Hahn said the percentage an organization brings in of that grand total is the percentage of the match pool they will receive, and all raised go directly back to organizations to apply to their needs.
“The match portion is going to go into their endowed fund at the community foundation,” she said. “Our goal with the event is to try and help organizations not only with the needs they have right now, but also to help them prepare for needs they may have in the future by building those endowed funds.”
Match Day, known globally as Giving Tuesday, takes place every year on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, and this year, that date is Dec. 2. Hahn said the giving period for this year’s Match Day is Nov. 17 through Dec. 2, and people can send checks for designated organizations to WKCF or make online contributions.
“It all culminates in an in-person giving event we’re going to host at the First United Methodist Church in Garden City from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Dec. 2 for that giving day,” she said.
Hahn said foundation officials are also focusing on the last grant cycle of the year, which includes “Our Community Our Future”, as well as any other grant funding opportunities WKCF provides.
“That has a deadline of Nov. 1 for non-profit organizations to apply for that opportunity,” she said.
WKCF officials are scheduled to meet with legacy planner attorney Josh Howard of Salina to help with the foundation’s planning and design services. The foundation is hosting a brunch meet and greet come and go event Tuesday at its Garden City office.
“We would love to have people come to our office to meet him for that, learn more about the service, who he is and what he provides,” Hahn said.
WKCF was started in 1996, and the foundation will celebrate its 30th anniversary next year. Hahn said leaders have a few plans in the works.
“We’re going to have a donor dinner,” she said. “We’re going to have an open house we plan to do probably in our anniversary month, which is May. There’ll be some things you’ll see come out on social media about that as well.”
Overall, Hahn said WKCF is in good shape at this time.
“We’ve had some growth over the last couple years,” she said. “We’ve added staff. We’ve added some capacity in adding that staff, and we’re really looking to see how we can benefit all of the communities we serve, how we can make a bigger benefit through things that aren’t necessarily grant funding opportunities, but other partnerships and ways we can work in the community. We’re in a really healthy position, and we’re hoping to continue to grow and provide for all of the agencies that are serving the communities that we’re in.”
