APPLETON — Elderly residents who are poor and isolated are the focus of a $300,000 grant being offered through a Basic Needs Giving Partnership regional initiative.

The Basic Needs Giving Partnership, which is funded by U.S. Venture Open Funds for Basic Needs within three northeast Wisconsin community foundations, the J. J. Keller Foundation and other community partners, is accepting grant proposals from nonprofit organizations for the one-time effort.

The Partnership, which involves the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation and the Oshkosh Area Community Foundation, is looking for ideas that "creatively address elderly isolation issues on a regional level."

"This is really about getting at the root causes of poverty in the elderly," said Cathy Mutschler, vice president of community engagement for the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region. "It is an area of particular need and an area that has been identified from the beginning of the partnership that they wanted to focus on, but they haven't gotten the kinds of requests they were hoping to see."

Proposed projects must be collaborative and assist residents in all three of the partner community foundations' geographic service regions. Projects must also go beyond typical ways that the needs of isolated low-income elderly, who often lack access to health care, education and transportation to appointments, have been handled in the past.

Mutschler said the Basic Needs Giving Partnership has targeted this need because of the increasing elderly population in both urban and rural areas of the Fox Valley region.

"U.S. Venture and U.S. Venture Open are very excited about being able to offer this grant," said Sarah Schmidt, director of the U.S. Venture Open and the U.S. Venture Fund for Basic Needs.

"We had an enormous amount of success through our golf outing, which raised $1.8 million. We're excited to be able to fund a project that is truly region wide and meet what we view is a critical need in the community. Our partnership with J. J. Keller Foundation makes all this possible."

Projects can receive a grant of up to $100,000 per year for a maximum of three year.