Funds allocated to Valley's largest non-profits

The Sonoma City Council has allocated almost $143,000 to three of the Valley’s largest non-profits.
The Boys and Girls Club Valley of the Moon, which provides year-round youth recreational programs, received $78,000.
The Vintage House, which provides programs for seniors, received $39,795, and the Ecology Center, which, among other things, provides 900 students a year with hands-on classroom lessons and free field trips, received $25,000.
In previous years the group of the Valley’s largest non-profits, all of which offer services typically provided by parks and recreation departments in other communities, included the Sonoma Community Center.
However, the center notified the council last month that it no longer wanted funding from the city for its programs, preferring instead to finance them through fund raising and donations.
The decision, said community center officials, was prompted by what they perceive as a growing disinclination by at least some council members to fund non-profits from the general fund.
The council in August had voted to remove the four large non-profits from the city’s budget and instead to fund them from a pool of money to be set aside for non-profits.
Mayor Stanley Cohen spearheaded the move aimed, he said, at least in part at giving the process more transparency as well as increasing the accountability for the expenditure of taxpayer funds by the non-profits.