Unleashing the Power of Community

Unleashing the Power of Community:

Continuing the Dialogue on Racism, Tolerance, Collaboration, and Commitment.

Two years ago, the Community Foundation's Social Justice Fund made a grant to support the History Center's three part series on addressing race and equity in our community.  In response to those talks, the Ad Hoc Equity Committee was formed.  This group has been meeting with area business and community leaders to discuss what progress is being made to promote equity and anti-racism within their organizations and our communities. Members of this group include Kirby Edmonds, Cal Walker, Brigid Hubberman, Kevin Brew, Audrey Cooper, Marcia Fort, Paula Younger and Judy Saul. This committed group is leading a Community Forum to raise the community's awareness of the progress being made on these issues and on what work still needs to be done.   The forum will take place on Monday, February 1^st, 2010 from 6:30-8:30 pm at the Holiday Inn in Downtown Ithaca.  The Community Foundation strongly encourages you to make every effort to attend and participate.

The Community Foundation is sponsoring this important event along with the Chamber of Commerce, TST BOCES, the Ithaca City School District, Cornell University, Ithaca College, Tompkins Cortland Community College, the Cayuga Radio Group, the Multicultural Resource Center, The Village at Ithaca, Greater Ithaca Activity Center, the United Way and the Ithaca Youth Bureau.

The purpose of the forum states, "We are striving to create a culture in the broader community that has the energy and commitment to support on-going efforts that can avert crises, rather than simply responding to crises when they happen."  Come and hear about on-going efforts and be inspired to create a community that is truly committed to equity and anti-racism. 

Success of this project will be measured by scores on the PALS (Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening) assessment and other district literacy measures for kindergarten and first grade students.  Teachers and parents will also be surveyed on the effectiveness of the DVD.  "By increasing the disproportionately low percentage of economically disadvantaged kindergartners who can recognize the letters of the alphabet, this project will directly address the ICSD board of Education Equity Goal of eliminating race, class, and disability as predictors of student academic and co-curricular performance". 

Please contact Janet Cotraccia at 272-9333, if you have any questions about this month's "Spotlight Grant"! 

Philanthropy In The News

The Community Foundation of Tompkins County will join a collaboration of other NYS community foundations to review this potential opportunity to apply for a Social Innovation Fund grant to serve Upstate NY.  We will keep you posted about this exciting opportunity.

Federal Agency Issues Preliminary Plans for Social Innovation Fund

The Corporation for National and Community Service today released a long-awaited draft notice spelling out how it will award grants under the $50-million Social Innovation Fund.

The "Notice of Funds Available" - which was delayed by slow Congressional action to approve the agency's budget - says the corporation plans to award approximately five to seven grants of $5-million to $10-million during the 2010 fiscal year, which ends September 30.

The money, which will be awarded for periods of up to five years, will go to "intermediary grant-making organizations" that will in turn award grants of at least $100,000 annually to promising nonprofit groups. Both the intermediary organizations and the nonprofit groups must provide matching funds.

The draft notice, which will be finalized after a comment period that ends January 15, also offers a definition of "social innovation" and explains what kind of evidence the grant makers and nonprofit groups will be required to provide to show their projects have impact.

Corporation officials said on a telephone conference call they expect to receive between 150 to 200 applications for the money, which they expect to award next summer.

Among the notice's provisions:

Definition of Social Innovation: "Development of a potentially transformative practice or approach to meeting critical social needs."

Priority Grant-making Areas: Projects to improve "measurable outcomes" in increasing economic opportunity; preparing young people for success in school, citizenship, and work; and promoting healthy lifestyles. The grant makers must support programs that serve low-income neighborhoods.

Emphasis on Evidence: The corporation will give priority to intermediary groups that use "rigorous evidence" to select their grant recipients, will encourage the use of evaluation tools by all participants, and will assess the efforts of the grant makers and nonprofit groups to achieve measurable outcomes. The notice provides definitions of "strong impact," "strong evidence," "moderate evidence," and "preliminary evidence."

Examples of Potentially Successful Applicants: 1) "A rural, nonprofit grant-making organization with deep roots in the local community and a strong focus on community needs, including education, health, and poverty." 2) "A high-engagement philanthropy organization working with a handful of innovative community organizations in two areas: workforce development and poverty alleviation." 3) "A local government office with a commitment to spurring, investing,in, and supporting new solutions to local problems."

Nicola Goren, the corporation's acting chief executive, said the Social Innovation Fund is a novel approach to government grant making since the money will not go directly to nonprofit groups and does not hang its hat on a single promising approach.

Instead, the money will go to intermediary groups with an expertise in "finding, supporting, and monitoring the progress and growth of promising nonprofit organizations." She said it will also help build a network of organizations across the country that are skilled at targeting promising approaches to key social problems.

Asked whether the economic downturn could make it difficult to find matching funds, Stephen Goldsmith, interim chairman of the corporation's board, said he already had received signals that some national grant makers had an "appetite" to provide the money. He said grant makers should be especially interested in stepping forward during hard times since they could help nonprofit groups tackle social problems more effectively.

- Suzanne Perry