Community Revitalization - RE:Philanthropy

Archive for the ‘Community Revitalization’ Category

Participating in the Conversation to Help Reduce Gun Violence

In: Advocacy| Children's Issues| Community Revitalization| My Giving Story| Philanthropy

13 Feb 2013

The statistics are hard to ignore, and you may already be familiar with many of them. In 2010, guns took the lives of more than 31,000 Americans in homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings. This is the equivalent of more than 85 deaths each day and more than three deaths each hour. More than 50 percent [...]

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Building Assets & Wealth among Native Americans: Part Two, Opportunities in Urban Areas

In: Community Revitalization| My Giving Story| Partnerships and Collaborations| Philanthropy

6 Dec 2012

On one of the most storied streets in urban Native America, you can see a dynamic future taking shape. Colorful banners along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis proclaim the only Native American urban business district in the country. Established in 2010, the American Indian Cultural Corridor features five Native-owned businesses, including a [...]

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Building Assets & Wealth Among Native Americans: Part One, Opportunities in Indian Country

In: Community Revitalization| My Giving Story| Partnerships and Collaborations| Philanthropy

5 Dec 2012

When the mainstream media pay attention to Native American communities at all, they most often tell stories of trauma and tragedy. There is truth in many of those stories, of course, but we at Northwest Area Foundation see a different reality that also is true. When we meet with people on [...]

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A Look at Community Leadership/Collective Impact in Northwest Arkansas

In: Community Foundations| Community Revitalization| My Giving Story| Philanthropy

20 Nov 2012

Two years ago, Endeavor Foundation’s board of directors challenged staff to think beyond providing fund services and facilitated grantmaking by expanding our mission. Through a strategic planning process, we determined Endeavor should be a long-term advocate for Northwest Arkansas. Many refer to that as “community leadership.” Many in our region of 500,000 believe we’ve already [...]

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Think Long Term, But Start in the Community

In: Community Foundations| Community Revitalization| My Giving Story| Philanthropy

19 Nov 2012

This year, Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) is celebrating its 10th anniversary operating as a community foundation serving “Indian Country”—generally defined as the land and communities within American Indian reservation boundaries as well as off-reservation trust lands. Since 2002, ILTF has invested nearly $20 million in grants and programs that support efforts to return control [...]

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The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation Helps Give Community an EDGE

In: Community Foundations| Community Revitalization| My Giving Story| Philanthropy

13 Nov 2012

The city of Charleston, W.Va., is embarking on a new beginning as it molds a revolutionary program for young professionals: Early Dynamic Guided Engagement (EDGE). The three-year program offers recent college graduates the opportunity to live in the heart of downtown Charleston for a subsidized cost while they participate in charitable activities, meet current leaders [...]

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Showing the Heart of a Community Through Video

24 Sep 2012

Our world has become increasingly dependent upon content to attract people’s attention. This content ranges from blogs on the Internet to television shows. Due to global shifts in our economy, economic developers have to work harder to attract companies and individual entrepreneurs. What used to be local efforts to attract job creators from neighboring cities [...]

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When is Recovery Over?

In: Community Revitalization| Disaster Grantmaking| Philanthropy

6 Sep 2012

On the morning of August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. Within hours, it became one of the deadliest and costliest hurricanes in U.S. history. As a Southern funder, the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation recognized that while Katrina was an equal opportunity destroyer, it was not going to be an equal opportunity [...]

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Are You a Serial Entrepreneur?

In: Community Revitalization| Philanthropy| Private Foundations| Workforce Development

26 Jul 2012

On Monday, DRF announced a $10 million grant to fund an entrepreneurship initiative to benefit the residents of the City of Danville and Pittsylvania County in Virginia and Caswell County in North Carolina, the foundation’s Dan River Region footprint. In a global economy, investment in those who create businesses is essential. The Dan River Region [...]

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When Talk Must Become Action, It’s Good To Be Prepared

In: Community Revitalization| Disaster Grantmaking| Philanthropy

20 Jul 2012

El Pomar Foundation began preparing to respond to one of the worst natural disasters in Colorado history 10 years before the first sign of smoke in Waldo Canyon. In June 2002, the Hayman fire ripped through four Colorado counties, consuming more than 137,000 acres. While those flames were still active, El Pomar trustees established an [...]

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Making It Happen in the Dan River Region

In: Community Revitalization| Philanthropy| Private Foundations

7 Jun 2012

Time flies when you are doing good work. The Danville Regional Foundation launched its Make It Happen! (MIH!) program in November 2010 to show that everybody can make a difference through incremental changes, no matter how small. Now, approximately 18 months later, we just awarded our 50th MIH! Grant.
MIH! aims the focus on Dan River [...]

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The Work of Philanthropy in Crises–Part II

In: 2012 Annual Conference| Community Revitalization| Partnerships and Collaborations

30 Apr 2012

Foundations in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Detroit have faced conditions before and after crises that are all but unimaginable. For example, Detroit has enough vacant and unused land to fit inside San Francisco, more vacant land than any city in the U.S. except for post-Katrina New Orleans, a poverty rate of 38 percent, and [...]

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The Work of Philanthropy in Crisis Conditions—Part I

In: 2012 Annual Conference| Community Revitalization| Disaster Grantmaking| Nonprofits| Partnerships and Collaborations

30 Apr 2012

If there is an epicenter of the decline of a city and its loss of an economic base, the candidates start with Detroit, where the population has plummeted 25 percent in the last decade to 714,000–this for a city whose population was 1.85 million in 1950. The city now has an extraordinarily high poverty rate, [...]

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Paving the Way for Philanthropic and Public Policy Partnerships

In: 2012 Annual Conference| Community Revitalization| Partnerships and Collaborations| Philanthropy

30 Apr 2012

This year’s Paul Ylvisaker Public Policy Award winner, Linda Reed, president and CEO of the Montana Community Foundation, delivered a formal talk on the relationship of rural philanthropy and public policy. Given that Reed was talking about Montana, where there are only three communities with populations above 50,000, almost anything she might have addressed could [...]

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Equipping Citizens to Make a Difference

In: 2012 Annual Conference| Community Revitalization| Disaster Grantmaking| Partnerships and Collaborations

29 Apr 2012

Especially in our current funding climate, partnership and authentic engagement with those we seek to serve is critical to ensuring that limited philanthropic resources are invested wisely and deliver the greatest possible impact for those most in need.
The success of Foundation for Louisiana’s citizen’s guides illustrates just how important and rewarding it is for philanthropy [...]

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An Ounce of Prevention: Does the Past Still Help Us Figure Out the Future?

In: 2012 Annual Conference| Community Revitalization| Philanthropy

23 Apr 2012

“What’s past is prologue.” –Shakespeare
“History is more or less bunk.” –Henry Ford
Sunday’s Opening Plenary Session at the Council on Foundations Annual Conference in Los Angeles explores the “realization, rethinking, and reinvention” of: (1) the 20th anniversary of the L.A. riots, (2) Hurricane Katrina’s revelations of social inequity, and (3) the social experiments in Detroit amid [...]

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The L.A. Narrative

In: 2012 Annual Conference| Arts| Community Revitalization| Partnerships and Collaborations| Place

16 Mar 2012

“Los Angeles: America, Only Sooner”
John Deasy, our dynamic new superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), recently used that phrase to describe Los Angeles at a recent convening of funders.
It is true that because of our size, diversity, and global leadership position that issues bubbling up in California often foreshadow what’s next for the [...]

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Revitalizing Tohoku

In: Community Revitalization| Disaster Grantmaking

8 Mar 2012

One year after the complex disaster in the Tohoku region of Japan, much remains to be done to rebuild lives and communities in the stricken area. Tohoku will need business and philanthropic investments for years to come, and I am encouraged by the innovative and entrepreneurial approaches being implemented by several Japanese social organizations.
Prior to [...]

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Foundation Executive as Community Builder

In: 2012 Family Philanthropy Conference| Community Revitalization| Family Philanthropy| Leadership| Professional Development

12 Feb 2012

“…outside resources will be much more effectively used if the local community is itself fully mobilized and invested, and if it can define the agendas for which additional resources must be obtained.”
-”Building Communities from the Inside Out,” John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight, 1993.
I’ve been reflecting on how much my early training in community [...]

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New Web Tool Responds to Call from Philanthropy, Encourages Partnership in HUD Grant Programs

In: Community Revitalization| Housing| Partnerships and Collaborations| Public Policy

10 Jan 2012

Responding to Demand
It can be frustrating to look for useful bits of information on grantees and strong programs inside an agency that produces large amounts of data each and every day. Since its inception two years ago, our Office for International and Philanthropic Innovation (IPI) has fielded a variety of requests from funders seeking alignment [...]

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Is Loving Where You Live the Key to a Successful Community?

In: Community Foundations| Community Revitalization

18 Nov 2011

There are a lot of things to love about Centre County, Pa. Beautiful natural features. Ample opportunities to socialize. An open and accepting attitude among residents.
And according to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, qualities like that create a sense of attachment that inspire Centre County residents.
The Knight Foundation’s Soul of the Community [...]

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Make It Happen! Individuals Can Make Positive Community Change

In: Community Revitalization

16 Nov 2011

Do you know how to make your community a better place to live? Do you have an idea that would touch a large population or wide area? These are questions that Danville Regional Foundation (DRF) posed to those within its service area. To turn their ideas into reality, DRF launched its Make It Happen (MIH!) [...]

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Twenty Years Later, Living Cities, A Historical Accomplishment

In: Community Revitalization| Partnerships and Collaborations| Public Policy

21 Oct 2011

Living Cities, one of the more impressive foundation collaboratives still in existence, celebrated its 20th anniversary late last month. I was lucky, having been involved tangentially at the birth of Living Cities, when it was emerging from the thinking of a handful of national foundations plus two national community development financial intermediaries, the Enterprise Foundation [...]

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Community Foundations Redefine Redevelopment

In: 2011 Fall Conference| Community Foundations| Community Revitalization| Housing

19 Sep 2011

Imagine an affordable housing community in America where people live in safe, green living spaces with access to child care, health care, public transit, good schools, and good jobs. A community in which longtime residents mingle with newer ones in an economically diverse neighborhood, and where neighbors meet regularly to solve problems and nurture future [...]

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Community Foundations Benefitting from Farmer Bequests

In: 2011 Rural Conference| Community Foundations| Community Revitalization| Endowments and Investing| Rural Philanthropy

9 Aug 2011

Aging farmers are beginning to will land to community foundations that promise to rent it to local farmers and use the income for projects to improve the community, foundation executives said at conference on rural philanthropy here last week.
“Did you know that Southwest Initiative Foundation (SWIF) can accept gifts of farmland and retain the land [...]

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Your Bake Sales DO Matter

In: 2011 Rural Conference| Community Foundations| Community Revitalization| Donor Engagement| Rural Philanthropy

26 Jul 2011

Family, agriculture, small towns, and stories are all near and dear to my heart, so I am enjoying this week’s Rural Philanthropy Conference. During the first session of the Creating and Capturing Philanthropic Resources in Rural Communities track, we heard about Rural Development Philanthropy (RDP). And as rural towns and regions seek to transform their [...]

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Good Health Should Begin at Home, So Why Is Housing Making Kids Sick?

10 Apr 2011

At the Funders’ Network, we believe shelter should transcend structure and provide a home that offers good life chances and prosperity. We strive for this opportunity to be made available to everyone. Unfortunately, all too often, where people live limits their opportunities and diminishes their prosperity. Generations of chronic disinvestment in low-income communities have [...]