Community Foundation Update (01/13/18)
Alabama
In advance of the second annual National Day of Racial Healing on January 16, the Black Belt Community Foundation, in partnership with the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation, has announced a series of events in Selma. BBCF will be sponsoring multiple events involving the city's church and faith-based communities over the weekend, culminating in a concert featuring Kishi Bashi and the No-No Boy Project.
California
The Central Valley Community Foundation in Fresno has announced a $10,000 grant to Pledge to Stop Trafficking to match the amount raised by the organization during a 2017 fundraising event. Money raised for the PTST Fund at CVCF is distributed to organizations that are working to prevent sex trafficking in the region and provide direct support to victims. The matching funds are being provided by the Gundlefinger Fund, which was established at CVCF to serve women and children in the community who are victims of violence and who lack access to services needed to get their lives back on track.
The Chula Vista Charitable Foundation, an affiliate of the San Diego Foundation, has announced that its permanent endowment fund has passed the $500,000 mark. Donors to the foundation include more than a hundred residents and companies dedicated to improving the quality of life and meeting emerging needs in Chula Vista.
Hawai'i
The Aloha United Way, with the help of the Hawai'i Community Foundation, Bank of Hawai'i, and Kamehameha Schools, has released the United Way Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) Report — Hawai'i. According to the report, almost half of Hawaiian households don't generate enough income to pay for basic needs such as housing, food, and health care, while more than a third of the state's population fall into the ALICE category and 11 percent live in poverty.
Massachusetts
The Boston Foundation has announced $80,000 in emergency grants to housing and homelessness organizations. Recipients include the Pine Street Inn ($40,000), St. Francis House ($15,000), Women's Lunch Place ($15,000), and Bridge Over Troubled Water ($10,000). In addition, the foundation is reaching out to donors to strengthen the Food and Fuel Fund, which makes grants to organizations serving people whose access to housing, food, and energy is insecure.
The Cape Cod Foundation has announced that its grant and scholarship distributions for 2017 exceeded $3.4 million, bringing its total distributions since inception in 1989 to nearly $65 million. The year-end figure represents a year-over increase of more than $500,000 and includes more than $850,000 in scholarships from the foundation and its supporting organization, the Cape Cod Association, and $53,950 in strategic focus grants to six local nonprofits so that they can add personnel, replicate successful programs, and/or roll out innovative programs.
New Jersey
The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation in Englewood has announced a grant of $1,200 to the Dr. John Grieco Scholarship Fund at Academies@Englewood for the thirteenth annual Englewood Idol talent competition program. Each contestant will receive a scholarship award of $100 for recording one song and on two other songs as part of a group on a professionally developed CD. The foundation has been supporting the program since its inception in 2005.
The Princeton Area Community Foundation has appointed Justina Nixon-Saintil, Rakia Reynolds, and Anne VanLent to its board of directors, Planet Princeton reports. Nixon-Saintil leads global corporate social responsibility initiatives for Verizon; Reynolds is CEO and founder of Skai Blue Media, a Philadelphia-based multimedia communications agency; and VanLent is president of AMV Advisors, which provides strategy and financial management services to organization in the life sciences field.
New York
The Brooklyn Community Foundation has announced the five winners of its annual Spark Prize, which celebrates excellence and impact in the borough's nonprofit sector. Launched in 2016, the prize program provides $100,000 in general operating support grants to nonprofits that have demonstrated a deep commitment to racial and social justice work. This year's winners are the Cave Canem Foundation, the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, the Exalt Youth GRIOT Circle, and the Red Hook Initiative.
North Carolina
The Community Foundation of Henderson County has announced that tickets are available for the Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Breakfast, which will be held Monday, Martin Luther King Day, at Blue Ridge Community College. This year's program, "Keeping the Legacy Alive," will feature keynote speaker Valaida Fullwood, the award-winning author of Giving Back: A Tribute to Generations of African-American Philanthropists. Ticket for the event are required and can be purchased at the CFHC office in Hendersonville.
Ohio
The Greater Cincinnati Foundation has announced that it will host a sold-out Community Conversation and film viewing of the Academy Award-nominated film I Am Not Your Negro, which is based on an unfinished novel by James Baldwin, and host a community conversation with Baldwin's niece on Friday, January 19, at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. The conversation will continue with three sessions of "Being Curious Together About Race" later this spring. Both events are sponsored by GCF and co-sponsored by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and the YWCA Greater Cincinnati.