Last year, a Rotary Club of Newnan community grant sent 714 books by mail to Coweta County preschoolers, each addressed to the child by name. Another helped a free clinic treat uninsured neighbors who had nowhere else to go. A third bought Christmas for 12 local children.

On Tuesday, September 1, 2026, we will begin accepting applications for the next round.

Applications for the 2026-27 Rotary Club of Newnan community grants open September 1 and close Sunday, November 1, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. If your organization holds 501(c)(3) status and serves Coweta County, we would like to hear from you.

714 books, 507 patients, 235 mentors

Every organization that takes one of our grants agrees to come back and tell us what happened. Five of them wrote back this summer. Here is what they did with their 2025-26 grants.

Coweta Ferst Readers mailed 714 age-appropriate books to children under five, addressed to the child personally. Ferst Readers now reaches 28% of the county’s preschoolers, four points more than the year before.

Coweta Samaritan Clinic treated 507 uninsured adults across 3,428 medical visits, 265 dental appointments, and 54 behavioral health visits — and charged them nothing. In 2025, the clinic opened its own three-chair dental clinic on site, after more than a decade of sending that work out to partners.

ELEVATE Coweta Students put the money into the unglamorous work behind school-based mentoring: recruiting, training, matching, and supporting mentors. More than 235 mentors now sit down with Coweta County students week after week.

Southern Arc Dance Theater reached 68 people through Dance Without Limits and Dance for Parkinson’s. The adaptive program doubled in size over the year, and its DanceSport Invitational — endorsed by Special Olympics, one of only a few in Georgia — drew about 125 dancers and spectators.

BTG Community Outreach sponsored Christmas for 12 Coweta County children through Christmas in Coweta: gifts, clothing, shoes, and the other things on their lists, and a little less financial pressure on their parents.

The full reports, in each organization’s own words, are on our 25-26 Grant Recipients Report page.

Where the money comes from

The money we award is money this club raises in Coweta County. Our primary fundraiser is the Tour of Coweta, the cycling event that rolls out of the Historic Newnan Train Depot each spring with rides from 27 to 100 miles. The next one is April 17, 2027.

That is the whole idea, and it is worth saying plainly: raised here, spent here.

Who can apply

• Your organization is a qualified 501(c)(3) and has held that status for at least three years.
• Your program or project serves Coweta County residents.
• You can supply the six required documents as PDFs.

Applications are submitted online. We do not accept them by mail.

We consider every application without regard to race, sex, religion, color, creed, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, or age.

What we fund

We keep the program deliberately broad. Grants have gone to youth learning and recreation, after-school programs, food banks, literacy, basic human needs, shelter and counseling for victims of abuse, job training and vocational education for people with disabilities, older adult programs, end-of-life and respite care, free medical and dental clinics, the environment, and animal welfare.

We do not fund for-profit businesses, political organizations or campaigns, fundraising events, existing debt, or programs outside Coweta County. The Community Grant Program page lists both in full.

What you will need

Your application is not complete until all six of these are attached as PDFs:

1. Your IRS 501(c)(3) determination letter
2. A list of your current board of directors
3. Your most recent IRS Form 990 — pages 1, 2, and 7–12 — or your 990-EZ or 990-N
4. Your most recent year-end financial report
5. Your current annual budget
6. Your Georgia Charitable Solicitations Act registration (Form C-100), unless exempt

Gather them now. Every year an application arrives strong and incomplete, and an incomplete one cannot be funded.

How the year runs

• September 1 — applications open
• November 1, 5:00 p.m. — applications close
• November into early December — the Community Grant Committee reviews every application received
• Mid-December — every organization that applied is told whether it was funded
• First week of January — awards are presented at the club

A committee member who sits on the board of an applying organization steps out of the vote on that application.

One thing we ask in return

A report. Near the end of the Rotary year, every organization that received a grant tells us what the money did — in numbers, and in its own words. We publish those reports.

We ask because anyone who rode in the Tour of Coweta, or dropped money in a bucket, deserves to see where it went. And because a grant that changes something is worth writing down.

Ready to apply

The Community Grant Program page has the full requirements, the document checklist, and the application itself.

Questions? Go to the Community Grant Committee at rotaryclubofnewnan@gmail.com or newnangrants@rotary6900.org.