MARKETING MATCHING GRANT PROGRAM

 

The Colorado Tourism Office’s Marketing Matching Grant Program provides funding to not-for-profit organizations in the State of Colorado for the purpose of promoting the state or a region as a tourism destination.

 

The Colorado Tourism Office will award grants up to $15,000 this year. Funds will be awarded to organizations whose objective is to promote the state or the defined region. For every $1 the organization allocates to the program, the Colorado Tourism Office will provide $1 in matching funds. Up to 10% of the match may be in-kind, which may include services such as staff time or donated services or materials relevant to the grant project. The deadline for grant requests is Tuesday, August 3, 2010 by 4:00 p.m.

 

An organization must identify what category it is applying under: Regional/Partnership; Statewide; or Heritage Tourism. The definition of each category is listed below. For questions regarding application categories, see page 5 for contact information. 

 

This category is defined as a group of multiple Colorado communities (cities, towns, or counties) large or small, whose regional identity may be based upon geographic similarities, traveler behaviors, cultural identities, thematically, infrastructure links, etc. It is important to note that the use of the word “region” does not necessarily correlate to the seven Colorado travel regions identified by the Colorado Tourism Office. It is encouraged to demonstrate strong alliances through collaboration with other partners, other communities and securing other matching sources. The projects involving three (3) or more partners demonstrating strong collaboration, may be evaluated as being more competitive in the grant review process, and may be awarded a collaboration bonus of up to 5 additional points.

 

This category includes statewide organizations, destination travel groups and tourism associations in Colorado currently involved in tourism development. 

 

New this year, organizations can apply for grants specifically targeted to continued advancement of heritage tourism promotional efforts.  These grants must follow the guidelines of a Regional/Partnership or Statewide applicant as stated above but must complete Exhibit D (page 11) in addition to the general grant application. The Heritage Tourism applicant must circle its category on the Grant Application Form and indicate if it is Statewide or Regional/Partnership.

 

The CTO Matching Grant Evaluation committee will review the applications and make recommendations for the awards. The evaluation committee may have follow up questions for the applicant in order to better understand any or all aspects of the grant proposal. Please note that the week of August 30 - September 3, 2010 will be dedicated to the follow up questions from the evaluation committee. During that week, applicants should be available for the Q&A session from the evaluation committee via a conference call or email. The CTO and evaluation committee will contact the Primary Contact identified on the Grant Application Form to ask questions. The answers will be shared with the evaluation committee and factored into the review process. Follow up questions in no way indicate whether the proposal has or has not been approved.