Mission: The goal of the CELC-LLC Impact Fund is to extend the mission of Christ Lutheran Church into the world.

Vision: We recognize the inequality and suffering in our own community, and we establish the Fund to transform nonprofit programs and services to impact those in need and help raise people out of poverty or crisis in Athens County and Southeast Ohio.

December of 2022- A call for proposals was sent to over 100 nonprofit and public-school organizations in the Athens Foundation’s and the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio’s databases.
January 2023- Sixteen Letters of Intent were received totaling over $200,000 in requests. The Impact Giving Committee met and chose four organizations to move forward and complete full grant applications.

February 2023- All four organizations submitted full grant proposals by the deadline, which were reviewed and discussed in detail. The grant proposals needed to meet three criteria:

(1) Was it a new program/project that expanded the organization’s mission?
(2) Would the program/project impact people in the community and meet their current
critical needs?
(3) Was there a plan in place to sustain the program/project in the future after the Impact Fund grant ended?

March 2023- The Impact Giving Committee’s final decision was to recommend that the Christ Lutheran Church council approved all four projects and the ELCA global tithe. The CLC Council approved the funding of the four projects and global gift for these amounts:page10image19342896 page10image19343520

  1. Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet)- for the Individual Development Account (IDA) Program
    $13,686

  2. Athens Mental Health, Inc.- dba The Gathering Place- for the Bettering the Basement Project
    $16,917

  3. Women for Recovery- Serenity Grove- for the Furnishing New and Renovated Spaces Project
    $10,000

  4. Tri-County Career Center- for the Driver’s Education Project
    $12,000

  5. Tithe of 10% sent to the ELCA’s Lutheran Disaster Response
    $5,300

April and May 2023- The executive directors for the four organizations signed grant agreement letters, vouchers were submitted to the CLC treasurer, and checks were sent. The global tithe to the ELCA was also paid. Lucy Juedes wrote a press release for the newspapers. The total amount given away for 2022-2023 was $57,903!

Committee Members: John Laughlin, John Molinaro, Sue Righi, Anne Sparks, Mark Sunderman, Susan Urano, and Chris Snoddy (Chairperson)