2009 Wisconsin Good Grant Award Recipients Announced  

MILWAUKEE-The Donors Forum of Wisconsin (DFW), a statewide membership association for grantmakers, is pleased to announce the winner of the annual Wisconsin Good Grant Award, which honors innovative grants and exemplary partnerships between grantmakers and nonprofit organizations. This year's recipient is the Crisis Resource Center in Milwaukee.
 
The Crisis Resource Center (CRC) was created in 2007 with the ultimate goal of reducing the number of individuals with mental illness who, during a psychiatric crisis, end up in the criminal justice system, local hospital emergency rooms or subject to involuntary psychiatric detention. It is a 24/7 community-based, recovery driven, voluntary, psychiatric crisis treatment center. The CRC offers short-term stabilization services and focuses on connecting or reconnecting individuals experiencing a psychiatric crisis to existing community services. The Crisis Resource Center requires a broad-based, system wide partnership of individuals and agencies dedicated to helping individuals with mental illness.
 
The CRC is the result of a collaboration among local nonprofit organizations, Milwaukee County and Milwaukee Police Department who banded together to create a more efficacious, cost-effective approach to mental health crisis intervention and treatment. A CRC Advisory Committee was developed to begin seeking funds for the project and Transitional Living Services (TLS) became the fiscal agent. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation emerged with a $500,000 grant that required a local match which local foundations rallied to support. Over the past two years, the CRC has developed into a successful and sustainable program within TLS and its affiliated partner, the Milwaukee Center for Independence (MCFI).
 
Additional grantors of this project include: Helen Bader Foundation, Ceres Foundation of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Forest County Potawatomi Community Foundation, Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Erica P. John Fund, Charles Kubly Foundation, The Faye McBeath Foundation, Medical College of Wisconsin Healthier Wisconsin Partnership Program, Jane Bradley Pettit Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Ziemann Foundation Youth Board.
 
Collaboration is at the foundation of this project and is what keeps the CRC moving forward. With TLS and MCFI as the administrative leaders of the program, Milwaukee County, Milwaukee Police Department, the funding partners, and the CRC Advisory Committee work together to keep the Crisis Reseource Center on track.
 
"The collaboration in this project is, perhaps its greatest asset," said Jim Marks, Vice President, Director of Grant Program for the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. "It is not common that so many agencies and advocates come together to successfully address a community need. At the Greater Milwaukee Foundation, we were impressed with that collaboration. Any time a community is taking care of its most vulnerable people, it really does make the community a better place."  

The Good Grant Award recipients will be recognized at the Donors Forum's National Day of Service and Remembrance Luncheon on Friday, September 11th at The Pfister Hotel downtown Milwaukee, WI. The Crisis Resource Center will receive an award and a $5,000 grant from the Donors Forum of Wisconsin for the Good Grant Award, generously sponsored by Rockwell Automation. Additional information about the luncheon can be found at www.dfwonline.org.   
 
About the Donors Forum of Wisconsin