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In year two of new charitable era, Chattanooga United Way doles out several first-time grants

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Red Bank classroom assistant Jerrie Quering, center, supervises Red Bank High students Gabe Cortes, left, and Lucas Honaker as they volunteer pairing shoes at the Northside Neighborhood House's Red Bank Thrift store in 2022. Through an innovation grant from the United Way of Greater Chattanooga, the Northside Neighborhood House was able to hire two new staff members to expand operations at its thrift stores. Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / Red Bank classroom assistant Jerrie Quering, center, supervises Red Bank High students Gabe Cortes, left, and Lucas Honaker as they volunteer pairing shoes at the Northside Neighborhood House's Red Bank Thrift store in 2022. Through an innovation grant from the United Way of Greater Chattanooga, the Northside Neighborhood House was able to hire two new staff members to expand operations at its thrift stores.

By Andrew Schwartz July 13, 2023 5 min read

This month, the first chunk of cash in the United Way of Greater Chattanooga’s new 2023-24 grant cycle will drop into the bank accounts of nearly 70 Chattanooga-area nonprofits.

Historically, the local United Way chapter allocated a pile of money to the same set of a 40 nonprofit groups — until 2022, when it launched a competitive grant process to invest in a wider swath of Chattanooga-area charities.

This year’s beneficiaries include 17 area nonprofits that have not before received United Way of Greater Chattanooga grants.

Most of them offer some form of youth education and programming.

Ivy Academy, which teaches students about environmental stewardship, plans to develop an outdoor learning lab, according to the United Way. Splash seeks to build a professional art studio to provide free art classes and workshops to low-income youth. The Pop-Up Project plans to provide 400 free ballet, hip-hop and jazz dancing classes for children.