Cape Cod Foundation Distributes Nearly $1 Million to Support Basic Human Needs

​South Yarmouth—To date, The Cape Cod Foundation has distributed nearly $1 million in Community Support Grants this year to local nonprofit organizations navigating increased community need.

“These grants are designed to get immediate funding to those who need it the most,” said Foundation President and CEO Kristin O’Malley.  “While we identified food security and expanding the food delivery infrastructure as the key needs, we have also made grants that support childcare affordability, immigrant populations, and other emergent needs.”

Jeanne Ruckert Lovy, the Foundation’s Vice President of Impact, said that families on Cape Cod are feeling the effects of the high cost of housing, recent Medicaid cuts, and increases in fuel prices.  She added that 35%-40% of households on the Cape experience food insecurity—a 53% increase since the pandemic— and that 47% of those in need do not qualify for federal assistance.

“Many nonprofit organizations are also experiencing the impact of rising costs amid direct cuts in funding and increased demand,” Lovy said. “Nonprofits have requested larger grants for general operating support and funding to serve the most vulnerable populations on Cape Cod.”

O’Malley said The Cape Cod Foundation actively fundraises to build discretionary resources for increased grantmaking and partners with other funders, private foundations, and individual donors to expand local impact.

She said the funding for the Community Support Grants comes from a combination of annual distributions from the Foundation’s endowment funds, bolstered by fundraising during their 35^th anniversary campaign, and significant current use gifts from community partners and foundations that have entrusted the Foundation to utilize their community knowledge to steward the resources to meet immediate need.

“The collective giving model of a community foundation like us is an essential strategy designed to address current need and drive systemic change,” O’Malley said.

She added that the Foundation has a proven track record of rapidly deploying resources in times of shifting priorities and expanding need as demonstrated when it raised and distributed more than $5.6 million through its Strategic Emergency Response Fund during the pandemic, provided over $973,000 in Flexible Funding Grants to 53 nonprofits navigating sudden budget cuts at the state and local level and emergency funding to support food security in 2025, and distributed over $220,000 in immediate support to the community after the Blizzard of 2026.

For more information or to donate to The Cape Cod Foundation, call 508.790.3040 or visit capecodfoundation.org.