The organization issued small and large grants to nonprofit groups, including Lyric Theater, Community Youth Outreach, [Artspace] at Untitled and the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.
Large grants are for more than $10,000, while small grants are for less than that amount, said Meaghan Hunt Wilson, program associate for the Kirkpatrick Foundation.
“That’s about on par with what we distribute annually,” Wilson said. “Normally, by the end of the year, we’ll be at the ballpark of $2 million.”
The Foundation bases the grants on how much money the applicant is asking for, the projects the funds will be used for and the applicant organization’s operating budget. The Foundation usually gives money to Central Oklahoma organizations specializing in the areas of art, culture, education, the environment or animal concerns.
Grant money comes from donations to the Kirkpatrick Foundation and from some of the organization’s oil and gas interests.
A grant for $150,000 went to the Oklahoma Zoological Society for ultrasound equipment, and $15,000 went to educational programming for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Life Change Ballroom pictured, which teaches dance to elementary students, received $15,000.
“It’s rough in this economic climate,” Wilson said. “We just try to asses the applications coming in and respond to them as they come to us.”
This article appears in Nov 2-8, 2011.