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Collaboratives
Donor Collaboratives
Donor collaborations have been a part of the philanthropic landscape
for decades. Most focus on a specific social issue or capacity building
effort, serving a targeted geographic area. The grant makers that
contribute leverage their funding to achieve a greater impact. The
following is a compilation of a few of the existing programs, what
they do and who participates.
English for New Bostonians
Boston Schoolyard Initiative
Child Care Capital Investment Fund
Civic Engagement Initiative
Diversity Initiative
Executive Transitions Program
(ETP)
The Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino
Communities
Home Funders
Latino After-School Initiative
SkillWorks
Summer Fund
English for New Bostonians
English for New Bostonians (ENB) is a public-private-community solution initiated by the Mayor’s Office of New Bostonians that is committed to expanding the city’s long-term capacity to meet the demand for English classes. ENB addresses the demand for ESOL by:
- Increasing access to ESOL classes
- Building ESOL system capacity
- Supporting innovation that will increase the impact of Boston’s ESOL system
- Promoting employer engagement
- Increasing state, federal and private funding
ENB is staffed by The Boston Adult Literacy Fund, The Mayor’s Office of Jobs & Community Services, and The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition. ENB includes representation from the City of Boston and private funders.
To learn more about English for New Bostonians, contact:
The
Boston Schoolyard Initiative is a model for promoting
community-driven sustainable development, environmental stewardship,
responsible public policy, and outdoor experiential education in
the Boston Public Schools. This public/private partnership, funded
by the City of Boston and a collaborative of local foundations,
is revitalizing Boston’s underutilized schoolyards using an
inclusive community design process aimed at uniting school and neighborhood
while building constituency groups capable of sustaining capital
improvements and ongoing programming. The Boston Schoolyard Funders
Collaborative awards organizing and planning grants to foster community
involvement. Community groups, made up of parents, students, teachers,
school administrators, custodians, local residents, businesses,
and community-based organizations engage in a participatory design
process with the help of contracted landscape architects, to design
improvements to their outdoor open spaces. To learn more, visit www.schoolyards.org
The
Child Care Capital Investment Fund was started
in 1991 by the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and a group of local
funders to address the problem of inadequate supply of high-quality
child care space. The Fund, now an independent 501 (c) 3 serving
all of Massachusetts, helps non-profit organizations to develop
high quality physical environments for early learning and youth
development. By providing loan and grant financing, technical assistance,
and training for child care and after-school providers that are
planning a facilities improvement or expansion project, the Fund
has helped hundreds of organizations through the successful implementation
of their facilities projects.
The
Civic Engagement Initiative is a funding partnership
led by the Boston Foundation to support nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations
to significantly increase civic engagement in the political process
among their constituencies. Its goals are to:
- Educate citizens about the political process, especially the
importance and process of voting
- Increase voter turnout in neighborhoods and with constituencies
that have historically low voter turnout
- Help put into place programs and practices which could serve
as foundations for further increasing voter participation over
the long term
The Diversity
Initiative was established in 1990 by the Human Services Personnel Collaborative
to provide technical assistance and funding
to nonprofit human services and cultural organization committed
to creating greater racial, ethnic and cultural diversity within
their staff and boards. Now based at Third Sector New England, the
program provides a web site to bring greater understanding of the
issues, challenges and achievements that are a part of this important
work. The Diversity Initiative funds organizations in the Greater
Boston, Massachusetts area. Past and present funders and participating
organizations include:
- Associated Grant Makers
- The Boston Foundation
- Boston Globe Foundation
- Clipper Ship Foundation
- The Hyams Foundation
- Lotus Development Corporation
- Massachusetts Cultural Council
- Old Colony Charitable Trust
- Polaroid Foundation
- Reebok Foundation
- Riley Foundation
- United Way of Massachusetts Bay
The
Boston Adult Literacy Fund is the lead agent and fiscal
conduit for the ENGLISH FOR NEW BOSTONIANS (ENB), a public-private-community
partnership initiated by the Mayor’s Office of New Bostonians.
ENB was formed to help new Bostonians attain an English competency
that will allow them to move forward toward their goals as parents,
workers, and community members. While the central goal of this partnership
is to reduce English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) waiting
lists, it is also committed to using its assets to build communities.
Established literacy programs were awarded $500,000 to open new
classes, and organizations with little or no experience offering
ESOL were awarded $95,000 to build and expand community capacity
to offer effective ESOL services.
Executive
Transitions Program (ETP) was created in fall
2002 by a group of funders to create support for positive nonprofit
executive transitions in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
They currently comprise the ETP
Advisory Board. The partnership first examined whether or not
Southern New England’s nonprofits were experiencing challenges
similar to those documented in two ground-breaking studies of nonprofit
organizations on the West Coast, Leadership Lost (1999) and Daring
to Lead (2001), published by CompassPoint Nonprofit Services in
San Francisco. The results are published in Executive
Director Tenure and Transition in Southern New England (2004, Maas
and Randall). The study provides a clear picture of the challenges
facing nonprofit leaders – including the fact that within
five years 71 percent (of the more than 800 respondents) plan to
leave their current position.
The partnership decided to start an Executive Transitions Program
modeled after that of CompassPoint. Through a competitive process,
ETP seated the program with Third Sector New England in April 2004.
Today the program offers an array of services to nonprofit organizations
expecting to or undergoing a transition of the organization’s
executive leadership. Services include succession planning, executive
transition and search, transition management coaching for executives,
senior staff and boards, and a pool of highly experienced transition
consultants who are ready to guide an organization, using this critical
time to strengthen the mission and programs of the organization.
In addition, they maintain a pool of experienced former executive
directors, who are prepared to serve in the capacity of interim
executive director.
The
Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities
The Funders’ Collaborative for Strong Latino Communities is
a concerted effort of foundations, corporations, government and
individual donors to support capacity building and technical assistance
among small to medium-sized Latino-led nonprofits in targeted geographic
areas of the U.S. and Latin America. Since 2000, the Collaborative
has established 15 sites, including one in Massachusetts/Rhode Island,
in which The Boston Foundation, Community Foundation of Western
Massachusetts, The Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, Hyams
Foundation, and The Rhode Island Foundation participate. More than
120 donors have contributed more than $24 million to the initiative,
and 323 Latino-led organizations have received capacity-building
grants, technical assistance, and convenings, including 13 nonprofits
in Massachusetts and 7 in Rhode Island. Click here
to see a list of these organizations and their capacity-building
projects. Early evaluation results on grantee
outcomes and project
implementation indicate that grantees are leveraging additional
dollars and developing new relationships, and that participating
funders are increasing their knowledge of Latino communities and
capacity building.
The Collaborative is operated and staffed by Hispanics in Philanthropy. The regional contact is Chris Cardona, Program Director, (646) 602.2905, chris@hiponline.org.
Home
Funders is a unique partnership of private funders that is using philanthropic dollars to address the current crisis in Massachusetts in housing homeless and other extremely low-income families. Home Funders has developed a new model for affordable housing creation by lowering interest rates and speeding financing, making projects more competitive for public funding. With $14.5 million in circulation as loans to affordable housing projects, Home Funders has leveraged over $380 million in other public and private resources since 2003 to address the unprecedented crisis in affordable housing for extremely low-income (ELI) families in Massachusetts. This partnership of private and corporate funders came together based on the belief that all other foundation investments aimed at addressing the social, education and economic needs of these families and children are at risk when the more basic need for adequate shelter is not fully met. Home Funders’ goal is to create 1,000 units for ELI families as part of developing 4,000 affordable units by 2013, and it also has public education, public policy advocacy and transitional services components. Home Funders also provides an excellent opportunity for funders to learn more about strategies to address family homelessness and the affordable housing crisis.
Home Funders is seeking new grants and Program Related Investments (PRIs) to leverage an exciting new $1 million leadership grant from the international Oak Foundation, which will be used for lending purposes, and a $3 million pledge in PRIs from the Fireman and Highland Street Foundations. $19.5 million has been raised to date toward an overall $26.5 million goal. An extensive pipeline of projects is waiting for new funding. This proven model needs greater investment to reach its 4,000 and 1,000-unit goals and spread the word to inspire similar efforts around the state and nationwide. To learn more about Home Funders, please go to its website at www.homefunders.org.
The
Latino After-School Initiative (LASI) endeavors to
create model after-school programs that identify youths’ skill
strengths and learning styles, and build these skills through academic
and vocational programming to stem poverty, school drop out rates,
violence and hopelessness in the local Latino community. Youth will
achieve mastery in a range of skills, improve overall academic achievement
and significantly more will graduate from high school -- qualified
for life long employment. Latinos comprise the largest minority
population in Massachusetts with 45 percent living in the United
Way of Massachusetts Bay service area. Fifty five percent of Latino
youth in Massachusetts live far below the federal guidelines for
poverty; yet the state has the 13th highest per capita income in
the nation. One in three Latino high school students drops out before
graduation. Fifty eight percent of Latino 10th graders failed the
math section of the 2001 MCAS exam and 48 percent failed the English
portion.
SkillWorks (formerly The
Boston Workforce Development Initiative) is an innovative
response by local and national foundations, the City of Boston,
and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to an increasingly wide skill
gap that has left too many job seekers and workers in poverty while
employers are unable to meet their needs for a skilled workforce.
SkillWorks capitalizes on the best practices and unique strengths
of the city’s workforce development system to help low-wage
workers and low-income adults who are unemployed or underemployed
gain the skills they need to advance into family supporting employment.
SkillWorks is funded by: the Annie E. Casey Foundation; the Bank of America Charitable Gift Fund and the Frank W. and Carl S. Adams Memorial Fund, Bank of America, N.A., Trustee; Boston 2004; the Boston Foundation; the City of Boston's Neighborhood Jobs Trust; the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; the Hyams Foundation; the John Merck Fund; the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation; the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; the Rockefeller Foundation; State Street Foundation; the William Randolph Hearst Foundation; and United Way of Massachusetts Bay.
Summer
Fund was started in 1971 to address the critical need
for summer camp for low-income urban youth from Boston, Cambridge,
Chelsea and Somerville. It is as true today as it was in the early
1970s that federal, state and local government alone cannot meet
the need. Associated Grant Makers, Inc. (AGM), a professional association
of leading grant makers and their partners in the nonprofit community
in New England, stepped up to the plate and has served for thirty
years as the galvanizing force to assemble financial support from
the private sector for this important program. The Summer Fund is
a donor collaborative that generates resources to support and strengthen
summer camps serving the low-income neighborhoods of Boston, Cambridge,
Chelsea, and Somerville. The Fund contributes to quality summer
camps that provide youth with opportunities for skill development,
personal growth, and new experiences. The strength of the Summer
Fund lies in its capacity to be both a collaboration of donors and
a collaboration of nonprofit organizations. Both groups working
together to meet one common goal: to provide high quality, affordable
summer programs to urban youth.
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