Stuart Comstock-Gay - RE:Philanthropy

Mission Investing for Community Foundations

16 Nov 2012

I first started working in the community foundation field more than 15 years ago. It goes without saying that I’m a big fan. I believe in this democratic model of philanthropy where the collective power of many creates powerful change. I’m also a fan because most community foundations understand that our work is constantly changing [...]

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How Mother Nature Changed Our Plans … But Not Our Message

3 Jan 2012

I’ve long been wary about in-house videos. Because, let’s face it, videos can be tough to pull off. So it was with some trepidation that we decided not just to make our first set of short videos this year, but to feature them at our 25th anniversary annual meeting-indeed, to make them the centerpiece of [...]

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Vermonters Rebuild After Pummeling by Irene

In: 2011 Fall Conference| Community Foundations| Disaster Grantmaking| Nonprofits| Partnerships and Collaborations

14 Sep 2011

Tropical Storm Irene may have seemed like a nonevent in some places, but not here in Vermont. We’re seeing firsthand the devastation left by this disaster, which is the worst flooding here since 1927. More than 160 roads were impassable, and “you can’t get there from here” was heard all across the state. Thousands of [...]

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Gore Warns of Perils of Short-term Thinking

In: 2010 Annual Conference

26 Apr 2010

“What were you thinking? Were you watching ‘Dancing With the Stars’?”
Is that the question our grandchildren will be asking us in 30 or 40 years—after climate change has continued to wreak havoc across the planet? Or will they be thanking us for our foresight and commitment to long-term thinking and vision? So asked former Vice [...]

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More Graduates, and More Retention

In: 2009 Fall Conference

6 Oct 2009

Just finished a mashup workshop, where discussion about Increasing College Attainment for Community Success was combined with a session on The Sticky City: Creating Places Where Talent Stays. A cast of eight or nine presenters so a lot of information to digest, but lots of good nuggets.

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Networking for Recovery

In: 2009 Fall Conference

5 Oct 2009

Ed DeSeve, senior advisor on the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, spoke Sunday afternoon and provided a roadmap for engaging with the government on the stimulus package. And while the details are useful, his overall theme is more important–the work of the recovery act, he emphasized, is a partnership, involving federal, state, and local government, and [...]

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Philanthropy’s “New” Role?

In: 2009 Fall Conference

4 Oct 2009

For 30 plus years, a sure laugh-line in the national discourse has been, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Over the past year, though, there’s been a renewed sense that government does have an important role to play. At the same time, the town halls furor this summer has shown us that the [...]

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Bridging the Philanthropic Divide

In: 2009 Fall Conference

4 Oct 2009

A topic on my mind as we prepare to start the conference. How is our field thinking about the rural “philanthropy divide?” The Big Sky Institute for the Advancement of Nonprofits, based in Helena, has done great work identifying and sharing information about a huge divide in the amount of philanthropic money available between states. Rural states [...]