Burke-Divide Electric Cooperative is excited to offer three grant opportunities to area community and non-profit organizations.
Sharing Success Grants
Burke-Divide Electric Cooperative is partnering with CoBank and Basin Electric Power Cooperative in the Sharing Success matching grant program once again this year.
Burke-Divide Electric will award up to three (3) grants totaling $7,500. Matching funds will be applied for through CoBank’s Sharing Success program and Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s matching grant fund.
To qualify for the grants, an organization must be a certified 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, school, or fire/ambulance department, and be located within Burke-Divide Electric Cooperative’s service territory.
Past recipients of the Sharing Success matching grant include Wildrose Public Transportation, Columbus Fire Department, Crosby Blue Line Club, St. Luke’s Hospital, Kenmare Rural Fire Protection District, Lake County Historical Society, Divide County Historical Society, Prairie Tumbleweeds, Kenmare Ambulance, City of Columbus, Crosby Park District, Kenmare Park District, Donnybrook Rural Fire District, Bowbells Volunteer Fire Department, Kenmare Food Pantry and Lignite Community Builders.
CoBank is a cooperative lending institution that provides loans and other financial services to vital industries throughout rural America including agribusiness, water, communications and power providers. CoBank is headquartered outside Denver, CO, serving customers from regional banking centers across the U.S. The Sharing Success matching grant program was launched by CoBank in 2012 as a way to highlight the International Year of Cooperatives. The program was designed to celebrate the vital role that cooperatives play in individual communities across the country.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative is a wholesale electric generation and transmission cooperative headquartered in Bismarck that provides electricity to electric cooperatives in nine states, including Burke-Divide Electric Cooperative. Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s Charitable Giving Program mission statement is to distribute Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s charitable gifts to a wide range of programs for the greatest social and economic benefit for the Cooperative’s membership, employees and communities.
RDFC Grants
Burke-Divide Electric Cooperative, in partnership with the Rural Development Finance Corporation (RDFC), will be awarding three (3) $1000 grants within the Cooperative’s service territory.
Eligible projects for these grants include the following: community owned businesses such as a café, grocery store or motel; community-based projects such as school or youth projects; or community facilities such as ambulance services, fire districts, recreation, hospital/clinic or community center. Funds may not be used for general operating expenses.
Grant recipients are required to have four matching dollars for every RDFC grant dollar awarded.
Past recipients of the RDFC grants include Bowbells Swimming Pool, Portal Ambulance, Crosby Kids Daycare, Bowbells PTO, Kenmare Fire Department, Columbus Fire Department, Kenmare Ambulance, Burke County Fair, St. Luke’s Hospital, and the Kenmare Swimming Pool, Bowbells Volunteer Fire Department and Lignite Community Builders.
The Rural Development Finance Corporation (RDFC) is a North Dakota nonprofit finance and development corporation whose member-owners are all the North Dakota Rural Electric Cooperatives, nine of the North Dakota Rural Telecommunication Cooperatives and the North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives.
Operation Round Up Grants
Operation Round Up is Burke-Divide Electric’s charitable giving program in which participating members “round up” their electric bills to the next whole dollar with the extra “change” going into the Operation Round Up fund.
Non-profit and community organizations within the Cooperative’s service area are eligible to apply for Operation Round Up funds. Examples of qualifying applicants include area fire departments, ambulance squads, schools, non-profit projects and other non-political projects.
Qualifying organizations and/or projects may apply for more than one grant. The application deadline for all grants is September 15, 2023.
Contact Heidi Haugen-Grohs, member services manager, at (701)939-6671 or heidi@bdec.coop with questions.