How Naperville could refine grant for special events
Deciding how to distribute money for events and activities is one of the toughest parts of being on the Naperville City Council, some members say.
Each year, groups planning festivals and worthy projects seek far more money than is available in the city's special events and cultural amenities fund. Then each year, council members have to make the call on who gets the cash and who doesn't.
"It's a relatively small pot for a lot of great purposes, so we want to be very intentional about it," council member Rebecca Boyd-Obarski said. "It's a daunting task."
The process of giving out the $1.9 million available this year for festivals taking place after May 1 will go on unchanged.
But before seeking applications this summer for events during all of 2017, the council is asking for help defining its task.
Council members assigned the advisory cultural commission to review several aspects of the special events and cultural amenities fund, including its mission, how to determine applicant eligibility, how commissioners and council members should evaluate requests and how to measure success of funded activities.
The commission is expected to bring its recommendations to the council late this spring.
The special events and cultural amenities fund, known as SECA, was created in 2004 when Naperville began charging a 1 percent food and beverage tax citywide. It exists to support social and artistic events that celebrate the city's heritage, diversity and character.
Ribfest and Last Fling are two longtime recipients, and these festivals use the dollars to offset the cost of city police, fire and public works services needed to support their events around the Fourth of July and Labor Day.
Those festivals are staples of the fund, but council member Becky Anderson said some groups have begun applying for SECA money to host events that are solely fundraisers. She said she wants to clarify whether that's acceptable.
Mayor Steve Chirico also said the council should define the best strategy for doling out limited funds - whether council members should give the full requested amount to a small number of applicants or sprinkle small sums out to a larger group.
Once each year of funded events is completed, the council also wants to create a way to evaluate the return on its SECA grant investment.
"We often think of it as distribution of funds for what we think of as good purposes," Boyd-Obarski said about the grant, "but we're missing the value in measuring outcomes."
"There needs to be some sort of metrics on the impact of these events," Chirico said.