The Dublin City Council recently gave its blessing to hand out $120K to various non-profits as part of the 2011-2012 Dublin community grant program. While the amount of $120K seems incredibly generous, given the City had to make drastic cuts in services that impact all residents and businesses in response to its much publicized budget challenges, the 2010-2011 earmark is only two-thirds of the average annual amount that Dublin donated to non-profits over the past four years when the City of Dublin gave away $777,498. The recipients of these funds included many groups that provide educational resources and assistance for low-income seniors and families.

The Tri-Valley Housing Opportunity Center in Livermore, which provides financial, educational, and counseling resources for home buyers and owners, received $95,000 from the City of Dublin. Child Care Links, the provider of subsidized child care services, received $74,000 from Dublin over the 2007-2011 period. Some of the other recipients included Dublin Partners in Education (DPIE) that received $62,500, Axis Community Health in Pleasanton that received $62,476, Community Resources for Independent Living (CRIL) that received $61,752, Chabot-Las Positas Community College District’s Tri-Valley One Stop Career Center that received $60,000, and Tri-Valley Haven that received just under $60,000.

The City of Dublin has given $108,600 in community grants to educational programs related to Dublin’s K-12 public schools and provided roughly $79,000 to child care programs. Dublin has also supported the arts with $30,000 in grants to the Dublin Fine Arts Foundation and $19,000 to the Pacific Chamber Symphony for school music performances.

In terms of geographic distribution, nearly $300,000 (39%) was given to Pleasanton-based non-profits and another $260,441 (33%) to Livermore-based non-profits. The $140,000 (18%) the City gave away to Dublin-based non-profits was mostly for educational and art programs. The remaining $79,155 (10%) was given to groups in Hayward, San Francisco, and Oakland.

Dublin has provided the Dublin school district and other community groups with subsidized services that are not accounted for in the four-year grant tally of $777,498. One recent example is the $70,000 subsidy to complete the sidewalk replacement project in front of Dublin High School.

The Around Dublin Team would like to thank the City of Dublin for providing community grant information for this article.