In his years as executive director of the Champlin Foundations, Keith H. Lang has seen a proliferation of non-profits in the state and an increase in requests to fund a cross-section of capital projects and programs.

What Lang has always witnessed with corporations moving their headquarters out of state or merging with other companies is a decline in community philanthropic partners.

That’s made the Champlin Foundations grants all the more critical to the community.

Last week, the foundations formally announced it has disbursed $18.5 million to 200 tax-exempt organizations, bring the total disbursed since Warwick industrialist George Champlin created the first foundation in 1932 to almost $535 million. Word of individual awards went to recipients a couple of weeks ago, followed by announcements.

“There is no bigger champion for brick and mortar projects than the Champlin Foundations,” Mayor Scott Avedisian said yesterday. He applauded the Champlin Foundations for staying “true to their mission and sticking to their core.”

Locally, the mayor noted that the foundations have been a huge supporter of libraries, and in particular the Warwick Public Library as well as the Warwick Boys and Girls Clubs and the Community College of Rhode Island. This year the Warwick Library received $75,915 that will be used furniture, AV equipment, and carpeting for meeting rooms. The Boys and Girls Club of Warwick received $172,820 that will be used for new roofing at Oakland Beach and Norwood, as well as for furnishing the daycare program at Norwood and camperships.

CCRI was awarded $324,180 to equip a multidisciplinary clinical simulation center for nursing and allied health student training.

Generally, Lang said, the request for funding exceeds what the foundations have to give. This year was no different, as there were 385 applications. Of that number, 322 were considered eligible.

Lang said for every dollar given, Champlin receives $2.50 in requests.

What Champlin is seeing is being felt elsewhere, too.

Avedisian who a member of the board of Ocean State Charities and an honorary member of the Episcopal Charities Fund of Rhode Island, said “we have more applications per cycle than ever before.”

Ocean State doesn’t have the endowment of Champlin and grants of more than $5,000 are unusual, but what Avedisian is finding is that larger non-profits that hadn’t applied in the past are coming in with requests.

While Lang sees overlap between non-profits, he said combining agencies is “just like regionalization” on the municipal level. Agencies have their pet projects and cultures, and while merges might make for efficiencies, it’s not likely to happen.

Generally, Lang finds the state’s economy has improved, although that hasn’t translated into a reduction of requests. There are a number of projects Champlin has funded that Lang sees are having spin-off benefits to the economy.

One he named was the Greenwich Odeum, which is receiving $343,795 to make restrooms ADA compliant and for façade improvements. He can see those improvements as enhancing the theatre and in turn bringing more people into the East Greenwich business district.

Among the other area agencies to receive grants and the projects being undertaken is $143,825 to the New England Institute of Technology for an automated welding system for the shipbuilding and marine trades program and a diagnostic and information system for automotive technology; $200,000 for the Green House Project at Saint Elizabeth Home; $21,070 for a new kitchen at Scandinavian Home; $26,800 for HVAC upgrades at the Varnum Memorial Armory in East Greenwich; $12,000 for an audio system at the Cranston Library; $75,000 to the Kent Center to transform at property at 1315 Main Road in West Warwick into a temporary home for victims of crime; and $117,500 to the Girl Scouts of Southeastern New England, based in Warwick, to outfit with technology the new Girl Scout Leadership Experience Center and for camperships.

A list of some of this year’s grant recipients in two funding categories provided by Champlin is as follows:

Hospitals/Healthcare: $3,133,415

Blackstone Valley Community Health Care, $250,000 towards the construction of a new health care center in Central Falls;

Thundermist Health Center, $80,000 for medical equipment for the Woonsocket facility; Tri-Town Community Action, $125,000 in support of expansion of the community health center in Johnston; Wood River Health Services, $250,000 toward the renovation and expansion of the Hope Valley site; Rhode Island Blood Center, $225,000 for equipment to establish a Babesia (tick-borne disease) testing lab

Education: $2,779,910

The three institutions that comprise the Rhode Island State College system received grants totaling $1,328,730. The University of Rhode Island received a total of $629,550 for a hot metal extruder, equipment to establish a microfabrication learning facility, equipment to establish a Muscle Performance Laboratory, “SynDavers ”as an alternative to cadavers for human anatomy courses, and a Bioanalyzer for the Providence Biotechnology Center. Rhode Island College received $375,000 toward the renovation of the Introductory Biology Teaching Laboratory. The Community College of Rhode Island received $324,180 to equip a Multidisciplinary Clinical Simulation Center at the Flanagan Campus in Lincoln.

Other institutions receiving awards are Block Island School (48,340); Central Falls Senior High School ($100,000); Chariho Career & Technical Center ($100,000); Mount Pleasant High School ($100,000); Providence Career & Technical Academy (74,230); and West Warwick Senior High School ($38,395).