Boston Foundation March Grants include major workforce initiative investments

Boston –The Boston Foundation announced today grants totaling more than $13 million. This included important grants to two workforce development programs designed to support major initiatives of the Foundation. The Allied Health Initiative received $500,000 to continue the work of creating a pipeline of skilled health care workers, offering jobs skills for local residents. A second grant of $500,000 was made to SkillWorks, which also addresses the needs of hard-to-employ residents.

A grant for $90,000 to the New England Healthcare Institute will support Phase III of the Healthy People/Healthy Economy Initiative. This ongoing project which began in 2007 with the publication of The Boston Paradox: Lots of Health Care, Not Enough Health, juxtaposes the ongoing development of the health care sector with the physical wellbeing of area residents, tracking the effect of a rising tide of chronic, preventable disease on the region. The next phase of the initiative will seek to establish a new statewide leadership task force to develop an agenda related to chronic disease.

“The very real threat that diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease pose to the regional population is mirrored in the challenge it poses to our economic competitiveness,” said Paul S. Grogan, President and CEO of the Boston Foundation. “In addition to driving up the cost of doing business here, this trend is crowding out critical investment in a wide range of areas critical for the region.”

Each quarter, the Boston Foundation makes an Out of the Blue grant of $75,000—unsolicited and unrestricted—to an area nonprofit. These grants are designed to recognize exceptional leadership in regional nonprofits.  This quarter, the grant was made to the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, Inc. The organization is a non-profit, umbrella organization that brings together affordable housing and community development activities throughout the Commonwealth. Aaron Gornstein serves as Executive Director.

An unusual collection of grants is listed below under the heading of the East Boston/ Chelsea Environmental Fund. A time-limited fund established at the Foundation in 2006, the fund came to the Boston Foundation as a result of the settlement of a legal dispute over proposed use of Chelsea Creek tidelands. It is designed to support environmental projects in Chelsea and East Boston and to serve recreational and education goals serving the youth of these communities. The total amount of the fund is designed to be dispersed in the course of five years. As a result, grants significantly smaller than is usual at the Foundation, and for programs that do not typically receive the Foundation’s support—such as Little League baseball.

Grants are awarded following review of proposals by members of a committee made up of residents of Chelsea and East Boston, and is staffed by the Boston Foundation.

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In addition to $1,876,075 in Discretionary Funds, the Foundation also distributed $1,356,872 in grants from Designated Funds and $10,044,328 from Donor Advised Funds.

Discretionary Grants are made from the Foundation’s Community Fund, a collection of unrestricted gifts made to the Foundation to be distributed to nonprofit groups working to meet the needs of Greater Boston residents across a broad range of issues. Donor Advised grants are made from Funds established by donors who want to play an active role in selecting the organizations and programs they wish to support. Designated grants are made from Funds established by donors to support one or more of their favorite nonprofit organizations in perpetuity.

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The Boston Foundation, Greater Boston’s community foundation, is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the nation, with assets of over $964 million.  In 2007, the Foundation and its donors made more than $92 million in grants to nonprofit organizations and received gifts of more than $155 million.  The Foundation is made up of some 850 separate charitable funds established by donors either for the general benefit of the community or for special purposes.  The Boston Foundation also serves as a major civic leader, provider of information, convener, and sponsor of special initiatives designed to address the community’s and region’s most pressing challenges.  For more information about the Boston Foundation, visit www.tbf.org or call 617-338-1700.

The following is a complete list of the Boston Foundation’s Discretionary Grants approved by the Board of Directors on March 27, totaling $1,700,000.

ARTS AND CULTURE
Actors’ Shakespeare Project - $40,000
Boston 4 Celebrations Foundation, Inc. - $20,000

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Metropolitan Area Planning Council - $25,000

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
New England Healthcare Institute - $90,000

EDUCATION
MassINC - $25,000

OUT OF SCHOOL TIME
Associated Grant Makers - $80,000
Boston After School & Beyond - $75,000

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations - $20,000
Boston Foundation Public Safety Strategy - $200,000

OUT OF THE BLUE
Citizen’s Housing and Planning Association, Inc. - $75,000

NONPROFIT SECTOR
San Diego Foundation After the Fires Fund - $25,000

SPECIAL INITIATIVE: EAST BOSTON/CHELSEA ENVIRONMENTAL FUND
Boston Natural Areas Network - $15,000
Centro Latino de Chelsea, Inc - $15,000
Chelsea Green Space and Recreation Committee - $25,000
EarthWorks Projects, Inc. - $4,425
East Boston Little League - $5,000
Friends of Belle Isle Marsh, Inc. - $4,000
Mission Works - $22,470
Mystic River Watershed Association, Inc. - $15,000
Neighborhood of Affordable Housing, Inc. - $25,000
Piers Park Sailing Center, Inc. - $24,682
YMCA of Greater Boston - $20,498

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
Boston Foundation Allied Health Initiative - $500,000
New England Council - $25,000
Boston Foundation SkillWorks - $500,000