ICCS is a state-wide, not-for-profit organization committed to empowering people to determine the direction of their communities through education, advocacy and grassroots organizing. Since our inception in 1985, ICCS has been offering capacity building assistance to community and faith-based organizations through conferences, workshops and one-on-one technical assistance. ..read more

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Coalition to use $500,000 grant to help groups expand services

By PETE SHERMAN THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Posted Dec 25, 2009 @ 11:54 PM -

A Springfield-based, community-organizing coalition will use a $500,000 federal grant to help faith-based groups and other organizations expand their own services.

The Illinois Coalition for Community Services specializes in training and assisting grassroots community efforts that need help getting off the ground. ICCS works in more than 70 Illinois counties, mostly rural, where unemployment and poverty rates exceed state averages.

“We go in and help communities help themselves,” said ICCS executive director Al Riddley. “We engage citizens who want their community to improve. We charge nothing for our services.”

ICCS has helped groups fight high natural gas rates and build libraries. With its new Compassion Capital Fund Demonstration grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ICCS will be able to train existing organizations and offer sub-grants of up to $25,000 for them to expand.

Riddley said organizations that run food banks or clothing shelters are among the kinds of groups he envisions assisting.

“A lot of food banks and clothing shelters are close to being depleted,” he said. “We want to increase their capacity to serve.”

Riddley said he expects to see as much interest from nonreligious groups as from religious organizations.

ICCS intends to split the grant roughly in half, with about $200,000 set aside for the sub-grants. It will use the rest to provide workshops, more training and one-on-one assistance throughout the state.

“We’d like to spread it out to about 30 grants at an average of $6,500 each,” said Nicholette Dolin, ICCS’s Impact Project director. However, Dolin said ICCS will keep an open mind, based on how groups propose to spend the money.

“It depends on the types of proposals we see — if there are great proposals for $25,000,” she said.

Dolin said the grant is one of the final appropriations from former President George W. Bush’s faith-based initiative, which the Obama administration is retooling.

Pete Sherman can be reached at 788-1539.

Workshops set

The Illinois Coalition for Community Services is holding three workshops in January — in Springfield, Mendota and Marion — for service-oriented organizations, including faith-based initiatives, interested in grants of up to $25,000 to help them expand.

The Springfield workshop will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Jan. 12 at Operating Engineers Local 965, 3520 E. Cook St.

Lunch will be provided. Reservations can be made by contacting Nicholette Dolin at (618) 542-1774 or ndolin@organizing-communities.org.
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