Beaufort County nonprofit awarded $750K grant to increase its work in other counties
A $750,000 grant awarded Thursday — among the largest single grants ever given by the Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina — will allow a Beaufort County nonprofit to increase services in other Lowcountry counties.
Hopeful Horizons, a children’s advocacy, domestic violence, and rape crisis center with offices in Beaufort and Bluffton, serves Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties. The grant awarded Thursday will be dispersed over five years and will enable Hopeful Horizons to add a satellite office in Colleton County, which has the highest rate of child abuse cases in the state.
The organization already provides some services in Colleton County, but the new office will allow the nonprofit to help more people.
“We are honored to be chosen as the first recipient of the Coastal Community Foundations Catalyst Grant,” Hopeful Horizons CEO Kristin Dubrowski said in a news release. “This investment in our work allows us to make a broad array of life-changing service much more accessible to survivors ... living in Colleton County.”
Colleton County had the highest rate of child abuse/neglect cases in 2017. It has the highest teen death rates in the state, and nearly four in 10 children living in poverty, the nonprofit said. The county also has had the third highest sexual assault rate in South Carolina and among the highest rates of domestic violence per capita.
“These statistics only offer a glimpse of the magnitude of child abuse, domestic violence and sexual assault in Colleton County,” said Hopeful Horizon’s chief development officer, Erin Hall.
The Coastal Community Foundation, which began as a grassroots effort led by Charleston-area residents in 1974, now awards more than $20 million in grants and scholarships each year.
The grant Hopeful Horizons received Thursday night was the first awarded from the foundation’s newly launched Catalyst Grant program.
“We want to spark lasting, positive outcomes in the Southern Lowcountry region by supporting bold ideas,” said Edie Blakeslee, vice president of Grantmaking and Community Leadership. “The nonprofits serving this region have so much community wisdom, but we know how difficult it can be to pursue big ideas if you’re working on a tight budget with a small staff.”
The Catalyst Grant is one of four categories of the Beaufort Fund, the organization’s annual grants program that supports nonprofits in Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties. In 2019, the Beaufort Fund awarded 75 nonprofits a total of $826,500.
In addition to awarding grants and scholarships, the Coastal Community Foundation’s advocacy work priorities for this year are philanthropy, affordable places and inclusive spaces, access to economic opportunity, and education.
This story was originally published February 6, 2020 at 6:00 PM.
