Nearly 300 people attended the Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa’s annual Celebration of Community event on Friday, November 4. The event marked the organization’s 60^th anniversary and included the announcement of special grants to mark the occasion.

“We are incredibly honored to be celebrating 60 years of community impacts,” said Kaye Englin, CFNEIA President and CEO. “This milestone is only possible because of the leadership and generosity of so many people, past and present. We are excited to continue enriching Iowa communities and to grow this vision that creates so much good.”

During the event presentation, a special $50,000 capacity building grant was awarded to SuccessLink, a Waterloo-based nonprofit. The grant will be used to enhance and upgrade the organization’s database management system and expand its partnership to even more local agencies.

“We would like to thank the Community Foundation for this generous grant,” said Brad McCalla, SuccessLink Executive Director. “The $50,000 grant will allow us to work with many additional community agencies and better track specific outcomes that will allow them to run more successful and efficient programs.”

SuccessLink provides a wide array of services to community agencies, ranging from IT support and database development to grant writing, contracting service providers, and serving as a fiscal agent. A large piece of what SuccessLink provides to the community is the development of a community-wide data system. The organization works closely with local school districts, and has helped both Cedar Falls and Waterloo become designated Blue Zone projects.

CFNEIA also announced the two grand prize winners of its Good Things Happening photo contest. Randy Darst’s photo, wcfsymphony Live at RiverLoop Amphitheater, was the first place winner, and Daniel Luepke’s photo titled, Green Iowa Americorp Gardening with YMCA Kids, received second place. Darst received a $5,000 grant which he awarded to wcfsymphony and Luepke received a $2,000 grant which he awarded to Green Iowa Americorp for Black Hawk County programming.

The Good Things Happening photo contest was a six-week contest that encouraged people to submit photos of the good things they saw happening in Black Hawk County to the Community Foundation. Ten winners were selected each week and each winner selected a nonprofit to receive a $100 microgrant. Over 300 photos were submitted, and $13,000 in grants were awarded to Black Hawk County nonprofits, including the grand prize grants, through the contest.

“The photos submitted to the Good Things Happening photo contest were truly inspiring,” said Englin. “They are a testament to all the great things people in our communities are doing to make them better and stronger for everyone. We want to thank those who participated for allowing us to show through pictures some of what makes Black Hawk County great.”

The Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa was established in 1956 as the Waterloo Civic Foundation and has since grown to serve 20 Iowa counties, partnering with 24 affiliate county and community foundations to create local impacts. In its 60 years, CFNEIA has distributed over $75 million in grants to nonprofits and now holds $90 million in assets to support causes in communities across its region forever. CFNEIA is the only local nationally accredited community foundation, and employs 12 staff to help people support the causes they care about and collaborate with nonprofits to enrich communities in its region.