MassINC is proud to present the new research report, Planning forCollege: A Consumer Approach to the Higher Education Marketplace, made possible with generous support fromthe Highland Street Foundation, the State Street Foundation, and the Cabot Family Charitable Trust.

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

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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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.

Taking part in the collaborative effort are the Boston Foundation, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Eos Foundation, the Highland Street Foundation, The Linde Family Foundation, United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley and a family that asked to remain anonymous.

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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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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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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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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

Announcements

Kudos to AGM's Martha Moore
Recently the Doctor Franklin Perkins School in Lancaster, Massachusetts held its annual Recognition Day Ceremony to celebrate individuals significant contributions in the field of public and community service. AGM's Martha Moore received the Distinguished Service Award in the Field of Community Service in recognition of her devoted service to the community of Lancaster. Also receiving awards were Senator Harriet L. Chandler and Shonda Schilling.  As Founder and Director of the Bulfinch Fund, Martha has become the driving force behind the effort to preserve The Fifth Meeting House, which was designed by Charles Bulfinch, and built in 1816 on the historic Lancaster Town Green.

Regional Association News

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.

The Haverhill Gazette
February 12, 2009 - The Grant Resource Network
Oak Bluffs Library News
March 7, 2009 - Grant Resources for Island Nonprofits at the OBPL

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. 

AGM Media Coverage
Boston Business Journal
Non-profit leaders see "Darwinian" times
January 2, 2009 - Recession veterans offer tips
January 23, 2009 - New Nonprofit Reality - Rapid-fire changes stun nonprofits: Donations and investments dry up, need for services grows.
February 6, 2009 - BSX Foundation recalibrates its focus

The Boston Globe
February 16, 2009 - Downturn spurs some foundations to give more

Massnonprofit.org
Foundations and Nonprofits came together to strategize how to survive the economic crisis. Over 400 grant makers and nonprofit organizations listened to a panel discussion on January 8, 2009 at the Back Bay Events Center. The panel discussion provided the attendees with much to consider as they brainstormed strategies in smaller breakout groups on how to maneuver through these difficult economic times. Local reporters were on hand to cover the story.
Mass. Nonprofit Leaders Say Nonprofits Need to Act Boldly
Nonprofits Respond to a Soured Economy, But Ask, 'How Long?'
Some Foundations Giving More, But Overall Trends Are Unclear

Philanthropy in the Arts Blog
February 18, 2009 - New Philosophy: If you give, you will get

WBUR Radio
Recently AGM received great press coverage at our annual Nonprofit Partners Meeting that was included in a WBUR news story about the nonprofit sector’s wariness in the current economic climate.  At the Meeting, we asked participants to discuss some key questions about funders and nonprofits in the months ahead.
Listen to the story here.

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.

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