In an announcement made at the WSGS Annual Meeting on 26 May 2018 in Vancouver, five local societies were  awarded Innovative Grants for special projects and purchases. The grants, up to $100, are designed to support the inventive and creative efforts of WSGS-member societies and organizations. Each society’s proposal was scored and ranked by a review team.

2018 Innovative Grants were awarded to:

1. Eastside Genealogical Society to help pay for “The Photo Detective” Maureen Taylor workshop to celebrate the society’s 40th birthday. Ms. Taylor will present “Finding Family History in Your Picture Mysteries” on September 15 in Bellevue. Society members will get to attend for free while the public will pay a small fee. For more information about this workshop, click here.
2. Lower Columbia Genealogical Society to purchase genealogical books to donate to the Longview Public Library for public use. Lower Columbia has generously donated books for a number of years, using money from membership dues and their coffee stops.
3. Okanogan Genealogical Society to help purchase supplies to repair and preserve books holding the “Tonasket Times” newspaper from 1913 – 1952. Each book uses an entire roll of special archival document repair tape. This grant will buy a few rolls of tape to stop the destruction of the collection.
4. Stillaguamish Valley Genealogical Society to help publish a book on “Early Stillaguamish Valley Schools” in the Arlington Area. It’s taken years to gather historical documents and photographs for this project from the 1800s to the early 1940s and now they’re ready to publish.
5. Wenatchee Area Genealogical Society For the 4th consecutive year, WAGS has applied for an Innovative Grant to promote genealogy in their area. This year, they’re focusing on the digital preservation of family records, library holdings and archival documents. They plan to preserve family histories and archival materials of their society, its members and the community.

The Innovative Grant program was started in 2015 to support the inventive and creative efforts of local societies and organizations. When created, Recognition Chair Roxanne Lowe explained, “We know that local societies can do a lot with very little, so we’re hoping the Innovative Grant Program will be what you need to jump-start a project that has been dreamed about for some time.”