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Keys to funding success

The keys to success for the newly-created Nalauttaq Fund (which will replace the current bingo slot system in Arviat) lay at opposite ends of the process governing the Kivalliq's number-one fundraiser.
The Nalauttaq Fund holds the promise to allow Arviat hamlet council to be far more effective in maximizing the revenue-generating potential of bingo.

As noted by Arviat Mayor Bob Leonard elsewhere in this edition (Fund created...), the Nalauttaq Fund will help even the playing field somewhat by being able to recognize previously rejected or ignored submissions that fell between the fund's financial lines through no fault of their own.

Leonard described the fund in Arviat this past week as being created so that hamlet council can support grant funding to support various community-based volunteer groups.

Leonard said the committee was repeatedly faced over the past couple of years with the issue of a lack of dependable reporting procedures to ensure the bingo money was ultimately going where it was supposed to.

He went on to say that an important part of the hamlet's plan is that it will ask for more reporting on where the money from any given grant actually went.

Just as importantly, people applying for a fixed amount of money will have to explain what they will use the funding for.

They will then have to produce a follow-up report that shows, after their event, where the money actually went before applying for funding again.

Identifying winning applications that are well-planned and thought-out, thoroughly researched and meticulously reviewed to provide maximum benefits to the community is the first step in creating a process that all but ensures the success of applications accepted by the committee members.

The second step – perhaps even more important to the overall success of the Nalauttaq Fund process than the first – rests on the willingness of committee members to follow through on the procedures put in place to provide transparency and accountability in leaving no doubt as to where any amount of funding approved by the Nalauttaq Fund – large and small – was spent in connection to the project, programming or event approved by the committee.

Never say never, but there is likely little to no possibility of creating another tool capable of eclipsing the amount of funds bingo has provided Kivalliqmiut with for decades.

The same can be said for the number of legitimate opportunities the youth of our region – especially in the areas of sport, education and gainful employment – have been exposed to.

The platform brought forward by the Arviat committee has the potential to continue delivering that level of sustainability, as long as the safeguards put in place by the language are strictly adhered to.
Food for thought!