GREEN BAY — The Greater Green Bay Community Foundation expects to give about $250,000 in Basic Needs Giving Partnership grants in 2010 to fight poverty in Northeastern Wisconsin.

More than $20,000 of that money will be given through a series of new "planning grants."

The nonprofit Green Bay Community Foundation was created in 1991 and gives grants to between 400 and 500 organizations annually.

Grants support human services, education, arts, culture and the environment.

The foundation's Basic Needs Giving Partnership was created in 2007 to help kids do better in school and improve families' self-sufficiency, among other efforts.

"It's geared toward addressing the root causes of poverty," said Cathleen Zehms, communications officer for the foundation.

Money for the Basic Needs Giving Partnership comes from the U.S. Oil Open, an annual golf fundraiser event; the J.J. Keller Foundation, a Neenah-based organization that offers grant money; and other donors.

The community foundation this year is giving planning grants for the first time to local nonprofit organizations to help them plan future projects.

The foundation will provide a $12,000 planning grant to a group of organizations that serve elderly people. That group will use the money to develop a program to help elderly people better manage their medicines and prevent falls.

A $10,000 planning grant will fund development for an Out of School Time Coalition to provide out-of-school activities for kids.

The foundation also plans to continue several grant-funded programs it has supported in the past.

The foundation will give a $100,000 Basic Needs grant to a program that helps people escape homelessness and domestic violence by providing counseling in Green Bay. It's the third year the foundation has funded the program as part of a three-year grant.

"Last year, they used it to hire a therapist," Zehms said.

A project to provide dental care to kids and adults who are uninsured or on medical assistance will get $50,000 this year from the foundation. The foundation has supported the dental program for three years.

The foundation also is tentatively slated to give $75,000 in grant money to the Child Advocacy Center, which helps investigate cases of child abuse and helps children heal from abuse.