Great Neighborhood Grants
The Great Neighborhood Grant Program is designed to help North Liberty residents, and especially Neighborhood Ambassadors, offer activities that bring their neighbors together and enhance the quality of life in North Liberty. The goals of this program are to:
- Build an increased sense of neighborhood community
- Develop or renew neighborhood relationships
- Encourage interaction between generations and cultures
- Further establish the Neighborhood Ambassadors’ role as an engagement coordinator and resource for their neighbors
Funds are available for resident-organized programs or improvement projects. Neighborhood Ambassadors or residents of a neighborhood with an ambassador vacancy are invited to submit an application. If you are not a Neighborhood Ambassador but you have a project idea, please contact your Neighborhood Ambassador to inquire about your neighborhood’s remaining funds and submit an application.
Additional sponsors are allowed, as is collecting free-will donations from neighbors, but attendance and participation must be free to all.
Questions? Contact Outreach & Equity Coordinator Micah Ariel James at [email protected] or (319) 640‐8172.
For an event, program or improvement project to qualify for a grant it must:
- Be neighborhood-focused
- Take place between January 1 and December 31, 2024
- Be held within city limits
- Be free for residents to attend
- Be inclusive, and open to everyone who resides in the neighborhood, without regard to race, gender, religion, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation or any other status protected by law
- Follow whatever COVID-19 mitigation methods are recommended by Johnson County Public Health at the time of the event.
- Not duplicate an existing public or private program
- Allow photographs of the activity to be posted to the city’s website and the city’s social media outlets
- Recognize the City of North Liberty’s Great Neighborhoods Initiative for providing funding for the event
Example of events or projects that will be considered: block party, potluck or picnic, neighborhood garden planting, art projects, ice cream social, outdoor movie night, installation of a Little Free Library or pantry, and other similar projects or programs. Fundraisers, profit-motivated (craft fairs), and political and religious events will not be considered.
Additionally, grant recipients must complete a brief follow-up evaluation for any event receiving grants funds, which includes photographs of event, description of the event, how many people participated and how it helped strengthen the neighborhood.
The City of North Liberty will reimburse grant recipients based on submitted receipts or pay vendors directly for the qualifying expenses of approved applications. Invoices are preferred, but credit card payment over the phone is possible, if needed.
Eligible Expenses
The types of expenses eligible include:
- Food to be consumed by attendees at the event
- Non-alcoholic beverages
- Entertainment
- Facility and equipment rentals
- Materials/supplies
- Giveaways/prizes
- Neighborhood-level advertising/printing
- Temporary food service permits
- Arrangements to remove barriers for participation (such as childcare)
Ineligible Expenses
The following expenses will be not approved:
- Tobacco products or alcoholic beverages
- Travel expenses
- Any materials that benefit an individual homeowner verse the neighborhood
- Regular neighborhood association or homeowner meetings
- Routine operating expenses
- Media buys
- Beverage permits
- City’s Special Event Permit fee, as this can be waived by the city administrator
Neighborhood Event Grant Application
At this time only Neighborhood Ambassadors or residents of a neighborhood with an ambassador vacancy have the ability to submit an application. If there is more than one ambassador for your neighborhood, please only submit one request per event. Applications are requested at least two weeks prior to a proposed event.
Regardless of an event receiving grant funds or not, the City of North Liberty Communications department is available to assist Neighborhood Ambassadors with their neighborhood event(s) in the following ways:
- Provide guidance for submitting a Special Events Permit
- Help navigate roadblocks in the planning process
- Provide introductions to public safety personnel and other relevant city staff
- Loan various event equipment:
- (2) 10×10 tents
- Fire extinguishers
- Bar top
- Extension cords
- Barricades
- Slow down signs
- Stopwatches
- Marketing
- Create limited design work (posters, Facebook event image, etc.), if a staff time allows
- Take photos and/or video day of the event, if staff time allows