Joint position for Waupaca city hall, school district, chamber
The city of Waupaca, Waupaca School District and the Waupaca Area Chamber Foundation have jointly hired Greg Grohman as a full-time grant writer.
The position was made possible by a grant received from Tim and Joy Neuville to fund the position for one year.
All three organizations will take on the responsibility of funding in the following years.
The idea of a grant writer was brought forward to the three organizations by local businessman and philanthropist, Tim Neuville.
“Since 2004 when the Waupaca Area Community Foundation started, I have been involved in that organization,” Neuville said. “I found the most meaningful experiences were awarding grants and seeing the good they did for our community. Over time, hundreds of grant requests were received.”
Neuville said some of the requests for grants were well prepared and thought out, while others were not.
Some years he received an abundance of requests, while other years there were fewer worthy requests than the Neuvilles had money to give.
“Several years ago, we had almost $40,000 available to distribute that was not awarded due to a lack of substantive grant requests. This led me to research other communities to see the type of grant requests they were receiving,” Neuville said. “ I noticed that similar communities sometimes had more requests than ours, and that they were receiving monies from other foundations and organizations in our state that seemed to never be awarding grants to the Waupaca area.
“My wife Joy and I are hoping that a full-time, dedicated individual – which I believe we have found in Greg – can take the time to develop a comprehensive plan and see where other communities are requesting and being awarded grants. Then start making requests for the city, chamber and school system to those organizations. There are so many organizations in our state, both private and public, that are giving out literally hundreds of millions of dollars yearly and we want Waupaca to get a piece of that pie,” Neuville said.
Grohman’s background
Grohman joins the organizations as a full-time grant writer after most recently working as an outreach specialist at CAP Services, where he promoted participation in the 2020 U.S. Census across much of central Wisconsin.
Previously, he was an instructional designer and program assistant at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s Frank J. Remington Center.
Grohman holds a master’s degree in history from the University of Iowa and a bachelor’s degree in history and sociology from St. Norbert College.
Hw is committed to community and nonprofit development and is eager to leverage his skills as a writer, researcher and organizer to secure resources that support the Waupaca area.
After work, Grohman tries to take advantage of Waupaca County’s world-class outdoor opportunities by canoeing, paddle boarding, swimming, skiing and biking.
Grohman’s mission is to find grants to support economic development projects that tie into one, two or all three of the organizations.
It was determined that economic development impacts all three organizations’ missions, which make this an ideal relationship.
Project examples could include housing, education, workforce development and quality of life items.
“The city sees this as a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with our wonderful intergovernmental and nonprofit partners for the benefit of all our residents,” said City Administrator Aaron Jenson. “The opportunities that Mr. and Mrs. Tim and Joy Neuville have opened are opportunities that don’t exist in all communities. We look forward to working with Greg to turn those opportunities into community assets.”
District Administrator Ron Saari said, “This position is an asset that most smaller school districts and communities do not have. We are extremely grateful to the Neuvilles for their generosity to fund the position for this first year. We look forward to the many successes this position will bring to our school district and community.”
“We’re all looking forward to having Greg on board, finding grant money that can fund projects to better our community on an economic development level. We appreciate the generous donation from the Neuvilles to make this all possible,” said Terri Schulz, president of the Waupaca Area Chamber Foundation.