2021 Community Impact Fund - Grant Recipients

illustrates GGUW's four impact areas

We support:
Basic Needs, Child & Youth Success, 
Behavioral Health & Mental Wellbeing and Senior Stability.

 

​Every year Greater Gallatin United Way funds and supports direct service agencies as one strategy to positively impact residents of Gallatin, Madison, Meagher, and Park Counties.  We are excited about the changes we have made to our process. 

 

We are very proud to announce GGUW's 2021 Community Impact Fund partners!

To learn more about each awardee organization or project, click the plus sign next to their name below.

To view 2020 Community Impact Fund partners, click here.

 

Basic Needs

Website: https://www.bozemanhelpcenter.org/


Help Center, Inc. provides support and guidance to the Help Center, Sexual Assault Counseling Center (SACC), Child Advocacy Center, Hearts & Homes and Sacks Thrift Store so that these programs can continue to serve the community. The Help Center, in Bozeman, MT, is a 24-hour Crisis Hotline and Referral Service, nationally accredited by Contact USA and the Alliance for Information and Referral Systems. As a member of the American Association of Suicidology, we are part of the National Suicide Lifeline network (1-800-273-TALK). We are also a member of the Montana 211 coalition which provides referral for human services throughout the state. We accept calls from a variety of clientele with issues ranging from suicidality, depression/anxiety to relationship/family problems. Our extensive database of resource information allows us to give appropriate referrals to inquire on the hotline. The Help Center started as a 24 hour Crisis Hotline in 1971. To this day, we are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year to assist individuals and families in sorting out problems, dealing with feelings and making decisions. 

Website:  https://mijamt.org/

 

Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance provides community services and outreach to immigrants.  They provide legal and health services; public advocacy; litigation support; and community-building activities for marginalized immigrant communities across Montana. 

MIJA was formed in 2012 as a statewide non-profit organization working for immigrant rights across Montana.  MIJA joined together immigrant justice work previously led by immigrant rights activists under one unified roof.

Website:  https://www.themtrep.org/

The Montana Racial Equity Project, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, advocates equity and justice for historically marginalized, disenfranchised, and oppressed peoples in Montana. We educate, train, and activate organizers, individuals, groups, organizations, institutions, and businesses to invest in interrupting racism, bigotry, and prejudice whenever encountered.  As the COVID pandemic hit communities of color hard, MTREP provided financial assistance to individuals to assist them with rent, utilities, food, healthcare, and other basic needs.

Child and Youth Success

Website: https://bbbs-bigskycountry.org/


Description: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Big Sky Country creates and supports one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth. With programs in Big Sky, Ennis, Livingston/Paradise Valley, and the Bozeman area, we serve youth and communities across 16,000 square miles and five counties in Southwestern Montana. 

Website: https://gallatincountycasagal.org/


CASA / GAL of Gallatin County, formerly known as Gallatin County CASA / GAL, is a nonprofit organization of community volunteers who serve as advocates for children who are alleged victims of abuse and neglect. Trained volunteers serve as the eyes and ears for the Judge. They provide an objective perspective on each case and advocate for the children’s needs while they are involved in the court system.

Website:  https://cccmontana.org/

 

Child Care Connections is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that serves as the only child care resource and referral agency in Gallatin, Park, Meagher, Broadwater, Jefferson, and Lewis and Clark Counties. Research demonstrates that consistent nurturing child care, with good parenting, helps children develop to their full potential. Child Care Connections supports families and the local economy by encouraging quality child care and safety.

Website: https://chphealthmt.org/clinics/west-yellowstone


Community Impact funds support CHP’s early childhood work and programming in West Yellowstone. This work includes parent education, home visits, collaborating and facilitating West Yellowstone’s Early Childhood Coalition, maintaining the Toy Lending Library and the Diaper Depot.

Website: https://www.greatergallatinunitedway.org/dolly-parton


Dolly Parton's Imagination Library (DPIL) is a book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth to 5 years. DPIL is one strategy we utilize to ensure children enter kindergarten ready to learn and are reading at or above grade level by the end of third grade. Reading to toddlers sets the foundation for later independent reading. Reading problems can be challenging to fix when discovered in elementary school. But many reading problems can be prevented if reading starts in the toddler and preschool years.

Website: https://www.greatergallatinunitedway.org/our-programs/introducing-kidsl…


kidsLINK provides an affordable quality environment with rich opportunities for learning, personal growth, and building relationships. The program supports academic success through tutoring, homework and reading support; strengthens well-being with daily physical activities; expands interests and sparks passion for learning through a variety of enrichment activities; fosters mental and emotional well-being through skilled and well-trained staff; enhances health with daily snacks and nutrition education; and supports working families by ensuring no child has to be home alone after school. No child/family is turned away for financial reasons.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/LittleRangersLC/


A learning center that culminates in a Pre-Kindergarten program. The program is unique as they are one of two STEM pilot programs for Pre-K in the country. The program impacts W Yellowstone's economy because young parents are the present and the future of almost all the town businesses.

Website:  

 

The Rock Youth Center's primary goal is to be a safe space for Bozeman’s school community to spend their time outside of school and home. We exist to provide a safe place where kids are welcomed, loved, and encouraged to grow in every aspect of their lives.  

Behavioral Health and Mental Wellbeing

Website: https://www.aspenmt.org/


ASPEN serves the residents of Park, Sweet Grass, and Meagher Counties of Montana, but also extends our services to anyone in a situation of domestic or sexual violence who are fleeing an abusive situation and need assistance. These services include an emergency shelter, a 24-hour support line, crisis counseling, support groups, legal advocacy, information and referrals, safety planning, emergency 911 phones, assistance with Orders of Protection and/or law enforcement reporting, forensic medical exam support, and community outreach and educational programs.

Website: https://bridgercare.org/


Bridgercare serves Gallatin, Madison, Meagher and Park Counties. CI Funds support HavenCare, a partnership between Bridgercare and Haven, the local domestic violence survivor advocacy agency. Haven refers participants to Bridgercare, where referrals receive reproductive and sexual healthcare services free of charge. This program helps to ensure that throughout the pandemic, survivors have access to compassionate, nonjudgmental healthcare without barriers in cost and privacy. 

Website: https://havenmontana.squarespace.com/haven-homepage


HAVEN is the only nonprofit serving survivors of domestic violence, sex trafficking and stalking in Gallatin County. Our approach makes us unique – everything we do is deeply and genuinely rooted in empowerment. We connect survivors to all the resources and help they need, while trusting they should be the one to decide what’s best for their own journey. Over the last four decades, Haven has worked to provide safe intervention for survivors of domestic violence, as well as to prevent future violence from occurring. We believe increased awareness through community education can make us all allies in ending domestic violence.

Website: https://www.greatergallatinunitedway.org/The_Resilience_Project


Greater Gallatin United Way launched The Resilience Project as one strategy to build healthier and more resilient communities. We aim to inspire curiosity about mental well-being and increase acceptance of the fact that mental health is as important as physical health. We believe that everyone can benefit from improved mental health (and that no one is immune to challenges related to mental illness).  When we shift the current cultural mindset in the direction of increased understanding and acceptance, increased willingness to discuss our own mental health challenges, and further decrease the stigma that surrounds mental illness, we create a way for people to feel better and be their best.  

Through collective efforts we are raising awareness about behavioral health and mental wellbeing through public service campaigns; encouraging people to learn more about the signs and symptoms of mental health and illness through workshops; sharing resources that support recovery and mental wellbeing across various platforms; and, providing tools and strategies for building resilience in workplaces and across the community. We believe these efforts will result in healthier and more resilient communities.

Website: https://mantherapy.org


Learn more about the campaign by watching this short video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxOAS339aLE&feature=emb_logo


Working aged men (25-54 years old) account for the largest number of suicide deaths in the U.S. These men are also the least likely to receive any kind of support, often because they don't talk about it with their friends, their family or even their doctors.  And they are less even likely to seek professional treatment from a therapist or other mental health expert. They are the victims of problematic thinking that says mental illness is an unmanly sign of weakness.  Because Montana's men are not immune to these same social pressures and continue to die by suicide at alarming rates, The Resilience is working alongside other community partners from Elevating Behavioral Health to raise awareness of men's mental health through the use of this compelling campaign directed at working men and the people who care about them.  

Website:  https://bigskywia.org/

Serving Big Sky through access and support to programs that improve the well-being of children and families in this under-served rural community.

Offering help in finding the support needed through multiple local resources.  Whether it be counseling, education or 24-hour crisis care, Women in Action can direct individuals to the right help.

 

Senior Stability

Website: https://www.befriendersbozeman.org/


Befrienders is a non-profit 501c3 organization that provides companionship, support, and friendship for the senior population throughout Gallatin Valley. Due to life transitions, physical limitations, or other circumstances, seniors may have limited social interactions, or they may simply be in want or need of extra company.  Befrienders matches a senior with a volunteer “Befriender” for a minimum of one hour per week, and we ask that our volunteers ordinarily commit to one year of participation in the program. 

Website: https://www.belgradeseniorcenter.com/home.html


The Belgrade Senior Center is a community that is committed to fostering an active environment for seniors. In this community, seniors can fulfill many of their needs from nutritional to exercise to friendship!