In the News

2010 URBAN EDUCATION INVESTMENT SHOWCASE
Learn about innovative school initiatives and hear directly from Boston school & district leaders. Join EdVestors for our annual Showcase spotlighting unique investment opportunities in our urban schools!
When: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 8am - 12noon
Where: City Year Headquarters Lavine Civic Forum 287 Columbus Avenue Boston, RSVP or if you have any questions, please contact Jennifer Stange at stange@edvestors.org or 617.585.5745.

The Lenny Zakim Fund announces 44 inspiring grassroots programs to receive grants at their annual event on March 9 at the Radisson Hotel in Boston.

Lots of compelling material to mine as "unsung hero" "beneath the radar" organizations, which are making a real difference in local communities, accept awards from the Lenny Zakim Fund during the evening. The ceremony opens with music from the children of Youth and Family Enrichment Services.

As the baby boom generation retires and life expectancy increases, steps can and must be taken to help seniors stay healthy, active and socially engaged. Challenges in our state as well as best practices were analyzed in a forum co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum and the Tufts Health Plan Foundation titled Healthy Aging in the Commonwealth: Pathways to Lifelong Wellness. The goal of the forum and the issue brief was to define healthy aging, identify programs and policies that support healthy aging in the state and nationally, and discuss barriers as well as pathways to better health and improved quality of life for older adults. Read issue brief

AGM mourns the loss of a former Board Member and grant making colleague, Gloria (Bromberg) Oldsman. Mrs. Oldsman served on the AGM Board when it was known as the Associated Foundation of Greater Boston. Her influence and actions helped start the cultural initiative for AGM's Summer Fund. Mrs. Oldsman was a former program assistant at the Hyams Foundation as well as one of the originators of the increasing support for programs for women and girls in the Boston area, and a member of Women in Philanthropy. She was honored by Action for Boston Community Development as a community leader whose inspirational deeds help to build a better Boston. Remembrances may be made to the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston.

The Massachusetts-based Nellie Mae Education Foundation has announced grants totaling $600,000 to twelve schools and organizations working to provide personalized student-centered learning experiences across the New England region.

Nicole Sharpe joins the Schott Foundation as Director of the Black Male Donor Collaborative. Ms. Sharpe became the Program Director of the Black Male Donor Collaborative administered by the Schott Foundation. Other members of the donor collaborative include Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation, Open Society Institute, The New York Community Trust, RBC Capital Markets, Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation, Sullivan & Cromwell, LLC, and Twenty-First Century Foundation. In this role, Ms. Sharpe manages an initiative aimed at improving educational outcomes for Black male students initially within the New York City area and eventually across the nation.

The state’s largest foundation will give $50 million to Boston-area nonprofits and efforts that fight climate change - one of the biggest gifts in recent years to that cause - in a campaign that marks a strategic shift for an organization that has never before publicized its charitable works. Over the next five years, the $1 billion Barr Foundation, the principal charitable vehicle for the famously private Amos Hostetter Jr. and his wife, Barbara, will give multiyear grants of $100,000 to $1 million to public transportation projects and local groups that help reduce greenhouse emissions. Read article

NBC News and theGrio.com announced that they have chosen Dr. John H. Jackson, President of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, as one of "theGrio's 100: History Makers in the Making". Read more

On January 22, 2010, Alfred Miller became the Sr. Vice President of Operations of The Schott Foundation for Public Education. In this role, Mr. Miller is the senior manager of the Foundation's finance and investments, operations, human resources, and compliance functions. Mr. Miller recently served as the Executive Director of Recruitment and Admissions for New Leaders for New Schools. Prior to joining New Leaders, Alfred spent the bulk of his professional career serving in various leadership roles in local government and education, focusing on operations and strategy.

An op-ed co-authored by Swanee Hunt, president of Hunt Alternatives Fund and former US ambassador to Austria, and Kerry Healey, former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, in the aftermath of Martha Coakley's failed campaign for the Massachusetts state Senate seat appeared in the Boston Globe. Read op-ed

AGM Nonprofit Partner, The Building Materials Resource Center, was one of only two nonprofit organizations honored with the 2010 Best of Boston Home Awards for Best Salvaged Materials by Boston Magazine.

The Endowment for Health, New Hampshire's largest health foundation, recently awarded more than $212,000 in grants. Awards were made to organizations for the resources necessary to forward health-related projects that advance advocacy, public policy, awareness and capacity building.

"These grants reflect the times by funding gaps experienced by our state's nonprofits as they work to meet the critical needs of our residents," said Mary Vallier-Kaplan, the Endowment's vice president and chief operating officer.
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United Way of Pioneer Valley recently announced that it named Sylvia deHaas-Phillips as its senior vice president for community impact. Ms. deHaas-Phillips will be responsible for working with community partners to develop solutions and strategies to address high priority issues facing the region, an area spanning 25 communities from Holland to South Hadley to Tolland.
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The United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley announced that it has donated $20,000 to Catholic Charities for counseling and crisis management services, as well as financial support, for local Haitian families following last week's 7.0-magnitude earthquake in the Caribbean nation.
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Twelve nonprofits in southeastern Massachusetts recently received nearly $163,000 in grant funding from the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts and Bristol County Savings Bank.

"These grants are part of our ongoing strategy to fund programs that are working to increase the region's historically low levels of educational attainment," said Craig J. Dutra, president of the Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts.

Women in Philanthropy of Western Massachusetts, Bay Path College, AFP, Women's Fund along with AGM Member, Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, presents the Taste of Philanthropy Conference on Tuesday, March 2 at the MassMutual Center. The luncheon keynote speaker is Pulitzer-Prize winner, Sheryl WuDunn, co-author of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.

Tufts Health Plan Foundation announced that it has awarded nearly $1.3 million dollars in grants to 36 Massachusetts nonprofit organizations, with most of the grants expanding access to programs that improve the lives and well-being of seniors. More details

BNY Mellon announced that it has distributed $170,000 in grants to four Boston area nonprofits, aimed at assisting people to find jobs, obtain heating oil, and reduce debt, and helping youth at risk. "Our philanthropy program centers on investments that help build strong, lasting community partnerships," said Joanne Jaxtimer, managing director of BNY Mellon's philanthropy efforts in New England.
BNY Mellon works with community partners to provide food, clothing, energy and housing assistance to those who require immediate help. The company's workforce development investments are designed to improve access to employment through job training, education, mentoring and skills development.

RESPOND, Inc., based in Somerville, recently received a grant of $18,000 to support its emergency shelter program for survivors of domestic violence and their children, provided by the BNY Mellon Charitable Giving Program. “RESPOND is profoundly grateful for the support of BNY Mellon and the Harriet B. Bayley Trust,” said Jessica C. Brayden, executive director of RESPOND. “We have always had great respect and admiration for the depth of the BNY Mellon Charitable Giving Program’s commitment to the community and to forging lasting relationships with social service providers.
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Nobody was talking about shorting overvalued stocks at the variety store, the plus-size dress shop, or the restaurant serving a nice goat stew in Roxbury’s Grove Hall area on a recent visit. But hedge funds could be vital to the future of this Boston neighborhood, where the average family income is about $35,000 and one third of the children live in poverty. The Harwich Port-based Eos Foundation, founded by hedge fund manager Ken Nickerson, is poised to invest $10 million over the next decade to reduce poverty in Grove Hall. For the past year, Eos staffers have been quietly analyzing poverty rates, institutional characteristics, and school quality in eight Boston neighborhoods. Grove Hall recently emerged as the foundation’s pick to launch Boston Rising, a new nonprofit group that Nickerson hopes will become a centralized funding source for antipoverty efforts throughout the city.
Read full article
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Lyndia Downie is accustomed to fighting for every dollar that goes into the coffers at the Pine Street Inn, which she heads, so she wasn’t expecting the call she got from Jim Healey last week. Healey is the president of the Yawkey Foundations. He was calling with a holiday present: The foundations had decided to award surprise grants to organizations across the state that provide food and shelter. None of them had applied for it. They hadn’t even asked for it. Out of nowhere, the Pine Street Inn was receiving a check for $100,000. At the Greater Boston Food Bank, president Catherine D’Amato was getting the same call. By her calculation, the $100,000 it received will translate to about 207,000 meals at the pantries served by the bank. The foundations had not decided to play Santa Claus. Rather, their largesse is a sign of the times, or, rather, the needs of the times. Altogether, the groups it awarded money to last week split $650,000 to provide basic services for the needy. “We just knew that our grantees in this category, food and shelter, have been especially hard hit,’’ Healey said yesterday. “So our trustees decided last week that they wanted to make a special grant to [organizations] we had supported in the past. Read full article
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The Cabot Family Trust has changed its guidelines and will be available on their website at www.cabwel.com after January 1. They have moved to a two-step process beginning with a concept paper. Substantive areas of interest and deadlines have not changed. The next application deadline is February 1, 2010.

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The Boston Foundation has announced its first quarterly grants to area nonprofits under new grant guidelines designed to increase the impact of the foundation's giving. Each of the announced grants is aligned with at least one of the foundation's nine core strategies, which include accelerating structural reform and promoting innovation in Boston public schools; encouraging healthy behaviors among residents while increasing access to physical activity and healthy food; increasing Greater Boston's competitiveness, efficiency, and prosperity while creating vibrant urban neighborhoods with opportunities for all residents; and building a robust nonprofit sector in Massachusetts. To that end, organizations whose work was closely aligned with the new efforts were provided increased general operating support joined with longer-term financial commitments for initiatives that work to promote thriving residents and vibrant, safe, and affordable neighborhoods and communities.

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The Boston Foundation presented a new biennial report of the Boston Indicators Project on December 16th at a John LaWare Forum, which attracted hundreds of diverse civic leaders, including featured speaker Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Called A Great Reckoning: Healing a Growing Divide, the report shows that because of the effects of a widening income inequality that disproportionately affects children of color—the growth tip of the region’s population—Greater Boston may not have the highly educated talent and resources it will need to propel the region’s knowledge economy forward in coming decades.

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Leading philanthropic organizations in the Commonwealth have come together to strengthen the support network for people in distress and to commit more than $1.6 million in new funding to address urgent needs of people affected by the ongoing economic crisis in Massachusetts.

A strategy shaped by a series of meetings among the participants will provide emergency assistance to people through organizations addressing an immediate need for food, home heating, homeless prevention and housing. In addition, longer term investments will increase the utilization of existing programs and help to build the capacity of organizations addressing these needs in the future.

Spending on correction agencies in Massachusetts has exploded in the past decade despite only a modest increase in the number of people incarcerated and now accounts for a bigger chunk of the state budget than each of the departments that oversee higher education, social services, and public health, according to a new study by the Boston Foundation. The study says the more than $1.2 billion spent this year on correction stems largely from a decades-old, lock-’em-up approach that has put about 11,000 people in state prisons and about 14,000 people in county jails, resulting in mammoth labor and facility costs. Read full story
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The Boston Foundation mistakenly overstated the value of funds it manages on behalf of some 900 donors by a total of $30 million this past summer, prompting the region’s largest charity to send an unusual letter to the donors, warning them of errors in their philanthropic accounts. The mistake was essentially an accounting error caught during a routine audit of the organization’s books and ultimately did not affect the amount of money the Boston Foundation gives to nonprofits, said its president, Paul Grogan. It gave away $86 million in its last fiscal year. Read full story

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Effective for 2010, the Trustees of Jane's Trust will focus their grantmaking in southwestern Florida and eastern Massachusetts on issues related to health and welfare as outlined in the existing guidelines. They will no longer make grants in arts and culture, education or environment in those geographies. Their grantmaking in the northern New England states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont remains unchanged and will continue to support organizations focused on arts and culture, education, environment and health and welfare in northern New England. This reflects careful deliberation on the part of the Trustees about areas of emphasis, focus and passion, and not on the good work of many organizations working to improve communities across the regions where the Trust makes grants.

Please visit the Trust’s web site at www.hembar.com/janestrust in late December to view a grants list, program area summaries and additional information. Please also note that the first application deadline for the Trust in 2010 is January 25.
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Congratulations to AGM Member, Hunt Alternatives Fund! In recognition of Swanee Hunt and Helen LaKelly Hunt's work on Women Moving Millions, Barron's has named them among the World's Top 25 Philanthropists. The philanthropists were chosen by Barron's and Global Philanthropy Group for their innovation and effectiveness. Helen and Swanee launched Women Moving Millions with the Women's Funding Network in late 2007 to inspire women to contribute gifts of $1 million and above to women's foundations to effect lasting social change by improving the lives of women and girls. Swanee's work on the campaign was largely carried out through her family foundation, Hunt Alternatives Fund. The Hunt Alternatives Fund in 1981 in Denver, Colorado to provide grants and technical assistance in the field of human service. Today, Hunt Alternatives Fund operates out of Cambridge, Massachusetts and Washington, DC and is focused on strengthening youth arts organizations in Eastern Massachusetts, supporting leaders of social movements across the country, advocating for the full inclusion of all stakeholders in peace and security processes around the world, combating the demand for modern-day slavery, and inspiring women to political leadership. The Fund has contributed more than $80 million to social change since its founding.

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Grants Managers Network Fifth Annual ConferenceStreamlining Grantmaking: Charting a Course for Change
March 15-17, 2010 Baltimore Marriott Waterfront
The GMN Annual Conference brings together grants management professionals from across the nation to discuss important trends and learn new skills. Participants will receive concrete ideas and resources to improve their organization’s grantmaking operations. The professional connections made at the conference will create a peer community that offers advice, problem solving support, ideas, and resources long after the conference ends. The 2010 conference will include sessions on grants management, technology, emerging issues, and professional development with a focus on streamlining grantmaking practices that will help you maximize your efficiency and the use of your organization’s valuable resources during these challenging times.
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION: Online Registration will begin December 8, 2009
Registration Fees: $495 for Early Registration (ends February 27, 2010) and $595 for Late Registration HOTEL INFORMATION: Baltimore Marriott Waterfront 700 Aliceanna Street Baltimore, MD Room Rates: $209 (plus tax)

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Byron O. Champlin, vice president and program officer for the Lincoln Financial Foundation and an AGM board member, recently had an article published in The New Hampshire Business Review entitled "Rethinking nonprofits: how businesses can help".

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Welcome to the Couch Family Foundation, AGM's newest Member. This private family foundation established by Richard and Barbara Couch in 2001. The mission of The Couch Family Foundation is to provide for the well-being and development of children and families by insuring they have opportunities to achieve their fullest potential.
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The Boston Foundation has announced a significant change in the way it makes grants to area nonprofits, as well as a newly articulated set of goals and objectives for its overall work. More of its grantmaking dollars will be shifted over the next two years to provide organizations with general operating support. As a result, fewer purely programmatic grants will be made in the future. The change comes after a strategic analysis of its grantmaking through which the Foundation has chosen to focus on a set of highly leveraged strategies designed to lead to greater impact and accountability within the Greater Boston region. More details

The Grants Resource Network
The newly launched Grant Resource Center in Leominster, which opened its doors late last month, has already filled 40 slots for its first training offering, underscoring the need in north central Massachusetts for easy access to funding-related data.

Established through a partnership of Associated Grant Makers of Massachusetts (AGM), the Leominster Public Library, and the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts, the Grant Resource Center (GRN) offers free access to AGM’s local funders database, the national Foundation Directory Online from the Foundation Center, in addition to trainings on grant research and writing.

The new is open and available to everyone. Previously, nonprofit staff in the region had to travel to AGM in Boston, for access to these no-cost services.

Martha Moore, AGM’s director of its Resource Center for Philanthropy, said classes typically fill up within a few days, noting, “People who never knew how to get a grant have participated in the GRN and then have received a 'yes’ to their applications.”

2008 Launch of GRN
The opening of the first of the Grants Resource Centers was covered by the Boston Globe. The Lawrence Grants Resource Center will offer local nonprofits access to the types of databases, resources and services that would only normally be available to nonprofits who came into AGM’s offices in downtown Boston. AGM thanks the Stevens Foundation for their support of this first Center.
Read the article here.
If you’d like to register for one of the Lawrence trainings, please click here.

AGM is pleased to announce a new initiative called the Professional Education Scholarships.
The Professional Education Scholarships will help defray the registration fee expenses to participate in workshops and trainings offered by Nonprofit Support Center’s.

Grant Making Member News
AGM Grant Making Members are Making a Difference
The Eos Foundation of Boston and Harwich, the Highland Street Foundation of Framingham, the Paul & Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation of Boston and an anonymous donor announced their combined giving of $1.1 million to food banks, fuels assistance programs, and other nonprofit organizations. "We just thought, wow, we've got to get money out on the streets so people don't starve or freeze," said Andrea Silbert, president of the Eos Foundation of Boston and Harwich Port, a family organization with the stated mission to "break the cycle of poverty by investing in children."
Read full article

*Brenda Lavasta has joined the Oral Health Foundation as the Grants Management Associate. Previously, she was a Diversity Fellow at the Rhode Island Foundation through the Associated Grant Makers’ Diversity Fellowship in Philanthropy. The fellowship program aims to inspire the next generation of philanthropic leaders among people of color by offering training and support to a select group of passionate, emerging professionals. Brenda began her career in the Executive Education Department at the Harvard Business School were she held various roles. She received a dual degree in Management and Finance from Simmons College and an MBA from Suffolk University.

* Babson College Receives $10.8 Million From Lewis Charitable Foundation
The grant will be used to establish the Lewis Institute, which will work to develop leaders, create knowledge in the field of social entrepreneurship, and grow new enterprises to solve global problems...Read more

Nonprofit Partner News
Acre Family Child Care recognizes providers - The Lowell Sun
Most Friday afternoons, Luz Mejia is absorbed in the busy tasks of preparing snacks, leading an art project, and reading to a circle of young children. On one recent day, however, she and 16 other family child-care providers from Acre Family Child Care found themselves being publicly honored for the excellence they bring to those View Full Story

Goddard House in Brookline Receives 2009 Business of the Year Award Goddard House in Brookline, the non-profit assisted living community, has been presented with the 2009 Brookline Chamber of Commerce “Business of the Year” Award. Nancy Shapiro, Executive Director, accepted the honor on behalf of the Goddard House Board of Trustees and staff at the Chamber’s Annual Meeting.