The Madison Christian Giving Fund announced that its campaign for 2015 concluded with $120,000 raised and they have allocated $120,000 to 22 Christian organizations to meet some of Madison’s most challenging issues in 2016.
The Madison Christian Giving Fund is a new organization with a board of 20 volunteer members seeking to organize a central funding source for Christian-based agencies. One hundred percent of the money raised through workplace payroll deductions, private donations and social media campaigns will be distributed to Christian-based agencies that meet community needs while encouraging a Gospel message of hope as part of their programming.
“Our goal was to raise $200,000 and that we received 50 applications totaling $514,167 in requests,” said Scott Haumersen, chair of the Madison Christian Giving Fund. “We would have liked to fund every request at their full amount, as each of these grassroots, community-based Christian organizations which are providing vital services in our community, but are excluded from funding in many cases because of their Christian message.”
Examples includes $5,000 to Mama’s lunches, a group of moms serving lunches to Middleton High School kids across the street from the school, each one with a Gospel message of hope. The kids affectionately call them ‘Jesus Lunches.’
The Fund learned that there are 200 minor girls involved in human trafficking in Dane County and their grant of $2,500 will setup a volunteer call center to make contact with these girls through social media sites in an effort to give them an opportunity to escape. Other examples include funding for a new homeless shelter, restorative justice programs and Christian school programming. Haumersen said, “$60,000 of our grants were specifically targeted to helping people of color, but we have so much more work to do.”
