For the Miami Valley Today
TROY — The Troy Foundation’s Governing Board has set aside $260,000 to create the Priority Needs Fund to be used to address the most pressing needs of Troy. The needs – led by transportation and childcare – were identified as a result of contracting with Measurement Resources Company to conduct a community needs assessment of the Troy community, which was completed in 2020.
Since the completion of the assessment, the foundation has convened a small working group to decide the best way to move forward to address the needs identified by the assessment. This working group consisted of non-profit and corporate leaders and other foundation representatives and was responsible for identifying several action plans that could be implemented immediately by the foundation, including the creation of a workforce survey to be used to further identify the transportation, childcare and housing needs of the community’s employees and the filming of a video demonstrating how the lack of affordable, convenient and reliable transportation can affect community members’ access to work, healthcare, food and other necessities needed for a good quality of life.
The foundation is working with organizations already providing services in transportation and childcare and will continue to lead discussions with individuals, organizations and city officials to determine ways to best address access to behavioral and mental health and affordable housing which were identified as the third and fourth needs, respectively.
To learn more about the findings of the assessment, the full Community Needs Report can be found on the Troy Foundation’s website at www.thetroyfoundation.org. The foundation invites the community to help them address the priority needs of the Troy community by donating to the Priority Needs Fund. The foundation’s Distribution Committee will meet in late November to design a process that will ensure the $260,000 in the Priority Needs Fund is used to support long-term solutions to address the needs identified by the assessment. The funding of the Priority Needs Fund will replace the foundation’s annual matching gift program that has taken place on Giving Tuesday the past many years.
It is the foundation’s hope that by addressing the most pressing needs of the community, that its’ funding will be used to continue to support the foundation’s mission of improving the quality of life for the residents of Troy.
