This month, we’re celebrating a Millennium Trust milestone: through the Trust, The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County has granted $1M to a range of Boulder County nonprofits, including Via Mobility Services.
“Our first Millennium Trust grant was in 2007,” said Mary Cobb, Director of Communications at Via. “At the time, our Easy Rider program – now our Travel Training program – was part of our evolution from a transportation provider, only, to also being a mobility manager. We were changing our paradigm to include training for older adults and people with disabilities to navigate public transit and to instill confidence in independent travel.”
According to Cobb, the program provides individualized training – based on an individual and family assessment – that, among other things, helps people plan a bus trip using an RTD route schedule and map, negotiate transfers and stay safe.
“If you’re older or have some kind of disability, public transit can be overwhelming,” she continued. “Someone needs to walk you through it.
“With the Millennium Trust grant, our first grant for the training program outside the funding it received as a pilot program, we were able to increase awareness and get more people to use the program. With the right success measures in place, we went mainstream, which is in line with the national trend to help our fastest growing population stay independent longer. Providing only door-to-door transport just isn’t sustainable, or desirable.”
In 2008, the Millennium Trust – which changes its focus every year, as directed by community members that designate where the funds should go – granted additional support to Via Mobility Services. “We were working on financial sustainability forecasting, which this grant helped us to complete,” said Cobb. “We had grown out of our building, and we were evaluating our needs – in terms of employees, vehicles and programs – to accommodate the communities we serve.”
“In 2006-2007, the State of Colorado provided one-time capital funding for transportation projects in Colorado,” Cobb continued. “Our request was granted, which covered about half the cost of our new building. The 2008 Millennium Trust grant, which happened to be focused on capacity building that year, allowed us to hire a consultant to conduct sustainability planning for us. From there, we went into a capital campaign and raised the remaining funds for our new building.
“We raised every penny and we don’t have a mortgage…the Millennium Trust grant was our springboard to do so.”
Fast forward to 2012 when a third Millennium Trust grant helped promote Via’s main mission: to ensure mobility and self-sufficiency among older adults and people with disabilities.
“We often hear concerns about people being isolated,” Cobb said. “We want to minimize social isolation by helping people get out of their homes, go to events and get to volunteer jobs…or otherwise engage in the community. The 2012 operating grant expanded all our programs and services to improve quality of life in out communities, and strengthened our rebranding effort from Special Transit to Via. We did a lot of outreach as we changed our name and increased our services that year, and the Millennium Trust grant really helped us do that.
“The Millennium Trust concept is terrific,” concluded Cobb, who has served on a Millennium Trust committee herself. “It’s a way to get the community’s perspective on what’s most important to address in a particular year. The changing focus of the Trust means being responsive to the changing needs of our community.”
The Millennium Trust was established in 1999 as a permanent fund of The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County to serve the needs of residents in perpetuity. It was created by donations from thousands of Boulder County residents giving their last hour of income for the year (decade! century!). People gave money to help meet the needs of the new millennium in the areas of the arts, environment, civic involvement, education, and/or health and human services. Donors to the fund are chosen at random to serve on the annual advisory committee and to select the year’s funding focus. In 2014, the Millennium Trust will exceed $1M granted.
