Kodiak’s Humane Society asked for the least amount of money – just $6,000 – out of the more than two dozen nonprofits that applied for funding from the city for FY’2026.
Cindy Trussell, a board member for the group that oversees the local animal shelter, said most of that money will go towards preventing the spread of pet diseases.
“The city support for remediation and repair of the floors and surfaces within the shelter is going to be really crucial because that’s where canine parvovirus can survive is in places that have porous surfaces," Trussell said.
The Kodiak animal shelter recently closed to the public for two weeks from June 17 to June 30 after confirming a case of canine parvovirus that affected multiple puppies at the facility and resulted in the death of one.
There were also some local nonprofits that requested city funds for the first time ever. New applicants this year included the Island Trails Network, Kodiak Island Dart Association, Kodiak Reentry Inc. and the Native Village of Afognak.
Kodiak Reentry relies on volunteers to help people returning to Kodiak from prison transition back into the community. Rhea Hayes, the organization’s treasurer, addressed the council during it's July 24 meeting.
“Since December we have served 29 individuals with our volunteer program during their experience with the judicial system, helping them to be more compliant and successful in our community," she said. "Each of these individuals has a family, a circle and a community that their success exerts influence on.”
Kodiak Reentry asked the city for $20,000 but was only awarded $7,500 to help reinstate a women’s transitional housing program with the Salvation Army and bolster its volunteer program. Hayes said Kodiak Reentry was impacted by the Americorps’ funding cuts of millions of dollars in late April and lost its supporting agent which helped coordinate the local nonprofit’s volunteer program.
Most of the Kodiak nonprofits, other than the Humane Society, requested $10,000 to $20,000 each. That’s mainly due to the city recently adjusting its policies that caps how much funding it gives to each nonprofit based on the type of category they fall into.
The new policy, which was adopted on May 8, provides up to $10,000 for organizations that provide Quality-of-Life Programs and up to $20,000 for Public Safety Support Programs and Emergency Response Support Programs.
Quality-of-Life-Programs are ones that, “promote the standard of health, comfort and happiness,” while Public Safety Support Programs include entities like food banks, crisis centers or animal shelters and Emergency Response Support Programs are organizations that deal with emergency shelters, counseling or public awareness. The policy also grants agencies the ability to apply for a special one-time only grant for special projects when the city has additional funds available.
This comes at a time when many nonprofits, including public radio stations, are seeing their federal funding sources diminished or cut altogether.
The Kodiak Arts Council for example is losing a quarter of its funding when one of its main grants ends in December according to the arts council’s executive director, Molly Miller.
“We are actively pursuing new funding sources, but federal cuts and economic uncertainty has really intensified competition for grants," Miller told the council. "We’re also anticipating that the Alaska State Council of the Arts may reduce their operating support in future years because there are large cuts being proposed to the National Endowment of the Arts.”
$10,000 of city funding will go to the Kodiak Arts Council this year to support community theater and summer arts kids’ programs.
Aside from giving general funds to local nonprofits, the City of Kodiak also allocated $25,000 from its tourism development fund and divided it between the Alutiiq Museum, the Kodiak Maritime Museum and the Kodiak Historical Society (dba Kodiak History Museum). $10,000 to the Alutiiq Museum & Archaeological Repository, and $7,500 each to the Kodiak Historical Society and Kodiak Maritime Museum. There was a draft version of the resolution that would have given $10,000 to the Island Trails Network as well, but that was not included in the final version the council approved.
According to city documents, the funding will be dispersed to the selected nonprofits later this week around Aug. 1. The city says grantees are required to submit written reports annually to the city manager documenting how the funds were spent. If the grantees don’t submit reports then it may cause the organization to be ineligible for future grant funding from the city.
Here is a full list of the nonprofit funds being awarded by the council this fiscal year [FY’2026] which do NOT include the city’s in-kind contributions to some organizations, such as paying for utilities:
Quality of Life Programs $30,900
- Girl Scouts of Alaska $3,900
- Hope Community Resources, Inc. $5,000
- Kodiak Arts Council $10,000
- Kodiak Hockey League $5,000
- Special Olympics Alaska (Kodiak Community Program) $7,000
Public Safety Support Programs (Shelter/food) $160,500
- Brother Francis Shelter Kodiak $20,000
- Hospice and Palliative Care of Kodiak $12,500
- Humane Society of Kodiak $5,000
- Kodiak Area Mentor Program, Inc. (KAMP) $15,000
- Kodiak Area Transit System (KATS) $20,000
- Kodiak Kindness Project $13,000
- Kodiak Reentry Inc. $7,500
- Kodiak Teen Court Inc. $7,500
- Kodiak Women’s Resource and Crisis Center $20,000
- Senior Citizens of Kodiak, Inc. $20,000
- Salvation Army Alaska (dba California Corp) $20,000
Emergency Response Support Programs $39,000
- American Red Cross of Alaska $4,000
- Kodiak Public Broadcasting Corp. (KMXT) $20,000
- Providence Kodiak Island Counseling Center $15,000
