All things MicroGrants! Tune in for a group discussion about MicroGrants – the history of the granting program, event highlights, application tips, and more! This conversation features Connie Quayle, Mark Vonesch, Francis McKenty, Immanuel McKenty, Jemma Hicken, and your host Manda Aufochs-Gillespie.
Continue reading Folk U: All Things Microgrants
The 2026 Microgrants 4 Neighbours program is out, and there are some changes this year.
Jemma Hicken explained, “Our Microgrants 4 Neighbours is a super cool little grassroots granting program. It operates with the philosophy that our community knows what it needs, and that low-barrier granting really gives individuals a chance to get small chunks of money and make things that they’re enthusiastic about happen in our community.”
“It developed out of Cortes Island Literacy‘s Seed Grant program in partnership with Folk U, but now Microgrants is run by the Cortes Island Community Foundation, in partnership with the Neighborhood Small Grants Island Network, which is a really cool program as well. It basically operates the same microgrants-for-neighbors program under the NSG Neighborhood name. Small grants exist in many other communities around BC, so it’s happening all over the province, but maybe Cortes did it first.”
Continue reading 2026 Microgrants 4 NeighboursIn this morning’s interview Manda Aufochs Gillespie, Executive Director of the Cortes Island Community Foundation, discusses a fund called Communitas and explains how the Cortes Foundation doubled the money for this year’s Grant in Aid.
Continue reading Communitas: how the Cortes Foundation doubled the money for this year’s Grants in Aid
Immanuel McKenty is the new face of the Cortes Island Microgrants 4 Neighbours Program.
When this ZOOM interview began, he was sitting in a room that looked very similar to where I interviewed him along with the rest of the Awakeneers on previous occasions.
Cortes Currents: Give me your spiel and then I’ll ask some questions.
Immanuel McKenty: “ The 2025 round of the Cortes Island MicroGrants is now open for applications between March 10th and April 7th. We’re accepting applications for cool projects in on in theCortes community and giving out grants between $50 and $500. The application process is super simple. The link is on the Cortes Foundation website under their Grants section. And there’s also posts on Tideline and the various different Cortes Island Facebook pages. One interesting new thing we’re trying this year for the first time is we’re planning to put all of the applications out for input to the whole community once we receive them. So anyone who lives on Cortes can log in and view all the applications and submit their votes on which are their favourites.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing all the creative projects that get submitted and there’s a few that are coming in already.”
Continue reading 2025 MicroGrants 4 Neighbours Program on Cortes Island
The Care 4 Cortes campaign officially ends today, but there is still an opportunity to donate this weekend.
Manda Aufochs Gillespie, Executive Director of the Cortes Island Community Foundation, explained “There’s still a day or two where we’ll leave up our Care for Cortes donation page on Cortes Foundation.ca. you can still see all the different projects that were highlighted. Give to them, if you have the financial wherewithal. It doesn’t have to be a lot. $20 to something like MicroGrants for Neighbours or to the Cortes Death Caring Collective, makes a difference. If a lot of people do it, this makes a big difference.”
Continue reading Music & 9 Special Projects: The Care 4 Cortes Campaign
