Grants of $2 million awarded to 10 New Mexico nonprofits

For a small nonprofit organization, landing a $2 million grant with no strings attached can be world-changing.

Just ask Bonnie Escobar, executive director of Enlace Comunitario, which is one of 10 nonprofits either based of doing business in New Mexico that each received a $2 million grant Tuesday from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott.

Enlace provides services to Latino and immigrant women, and some men, who are victims of domestic violence, including legal and therapeutic services.

"This is like winning the lottery," Escobar said Tuesday, the day Scott announced the grants. The grant amounts to half of Enlace's $4 million annual budget. "We have to be very careful how we spend it."

Directors of several nonprofits said Tuesday that the grants will help provide financial stability in a world where government support can vary wildly from year to year.

"I think it will give us certainly some breathing room," Escobar said. "And yeah, we're hoping that we can grow the funds to really help the agency for a long time."

Scott announced Tuesday that she has awarded $640 million to 361 small nonprofits nationwide that responded to an open call for applications. More than 6,300 nonprofits applied for the grants.

The New Mexico nonprofits that received the grants often cooperate with each other to provide overlapping services. The grants should provide a cumulative benefit for New Mexico's safety-net system.

For Cuidando Los Niños, a nonprofit that provides services for homeless children and families, the grant will help provide badly needed space to expand programs.

"Our wait list has tripled over the past 18 months, and the numbers are not expected to decrease anytime soon," said Ashley Martinez, a Cuidano administrator.

The nonprofit offers early childhood education, supportive housing and parental education for homeless children up to age 5. The nonprofit currently has about 80 families on its wait list.

The demand has created a space crunch at Cuidando that the grant could help alleviate.

The nonprofit plans to use the grant funding to triple the number of classrooms from four to 12, and triple office space as well, said Natasha Gacinski, Cuidando's interim executive director.

The $2 million grant represents a huge boost for an organization with a $3.2 million annual budget, she said.

"These funds are extra special because they are unrestricted" with no time limits or restrictions on their use, Gacinski said. "It's a great show of faith in us as leaders and an organization that we're going to be prudent with that money."

The 279 nonprofits that received top scores from an external review panel were awarded $2 million, including the 10 New Mexico nonprofits. Another 82 organizations in a second tier received $1 million each.

Scott has given away $16.5 billion from the fortune she came into after divorcing Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Another grant recipient is Keshet Dance & Center for the Arts, which provides opportunities for low-income families and youths in state custody to get exposure to dance and the arts.

"Dance is the tool that we use, and really the vehicle for connecting and for building community," said Shira Greenberg, artistic director for Keshet.

The 30-year-old nonprofit offers dance classes at all the youth incarceration facilities in New Mexico. Keshet offers dance classes to people regardless of their ability to pay and offers a preprofessional dance training program.

Scott's grant exceeds Keshet's annual budget of $1.5 million.

"Part of our strategic goals have been for a long time to really look at sustainability as an organization," Greenberg said. "This is a huge, huge opportunity for us to really invest in sustainability."