Local Community Funds

The Local Community Funds program is offered by the Western Colorado Community Foundation and provides grant opportunities connected to specific communities in western Colorado. The source identifies six Local Community Funds: the Delta Community Fund, Ouray County Community Fund, Surface Creek Community Fund, San Juan County Community Fund, T.R.U.E. Fund, and West Elk Community Fund. Each fund is geographically focused and is intended to benefit organizations, residents, or communities within its designated western Colorado service area. Applications are processed through the Western Colorado Community Foundation grant portal, which is used for grant seekers, grant recipients, and grant evaluators. The Local Community Funds serve several distinct geographic areas. The Delta Community Fund benefits organizations serving Delta, Colorado. The Ouray County Community Fund benefits the people of Ouray County. The Surface Creek Community Fund benefits the towns of Austin, Cedaredge, Cory, Eckert, and Orchard City in Delta County. The San Juan County Community Fund benefits the people of San Juan County. The T.R.U.E. Fund benefits people in communities from Carbondale to New Castle. The West Elk Community Fund benefits organizations operating within Hotchkiss, Paonia, and Crawford. The source does not provide further restrictions regarding specific projects, populations, or allowable expenditures for these Local Community Funds. Eligible applicants are nonprofits and must be a 501c3 organization or another qualifying charitable entity recognized by the IRS. The source specifically gives schools, churches, and government entities as examples of other qualifying charitable entities. Eligibility is also geographically dependent because each Local Community Fund is designated for a particular community or service area. Applicants therefore need to satisfy the charitable entity requirement and the geographic purpose of the particular Local Community Fund to which they are applying. The supplied information does not state fiscal sponsorship requirements, organizational size requirements, operating history requirements, faith based restrictions, or other organizational qualifications beyond the stated charitable entity requirement. For the general Local Community Funds cycle, applications begin August 3, 2026 and close at 5:00 PM on August 28, 2026. The Ouray County Community Fund is specifically shown with a different schedule, opening September 1 and closing September 25. Because the source separately identifies these dates for the Ouray County Community Fund, they should be treated as an exception to the general August Local Community Funds window rather than replacing the general Local Community Funds dates. No letter of intent, concept paper, pre proposal, notice of intent, or other pre application gating requirement is identified in the supplied information. Applications are processed through the Western Colorado Community Foundation grant portal. The source does not identify application questions, required narrative sections, required financial documents, attachments, evaluation criteria, scoring criteria, review procedures, or an expected application completion time specifically for the Local Community Funds. It also does not provide award amounts, an award minimum or maximum, total program funding, number of awards, matching requirements, cost sharing requirements, allowable spending rules, prohibited expenditures, award notification dates, or a grant performance period. These items therefore cannot be established from the supplied information and should be verified through the application portal or additional official Local Community Funds materials. The Western Colorado Community Foundation lists its mailing address as PO Box 4334, Grand Junction, Colorado 81502 and its telephone number as 970-243-3767. No individual Local Community Funds contact person or program email address is provided in the supplied source. The source indicates that Local Community Funds are offered in 2026 and provides a defined annual style application window, but it does not explicitly state that the program recurs annually or use a recurrence phrase establishing future cycles. Accordingly, recurrence should not be assumed from the information provided. As of August 11, 2026, the general Local Community Funds application period is open, with the general deadline on August 28, 2026, while the separately listed Ouray County Community Fund window is scheduled for September 1 through September 25, 2026.