Blogs

How decisions are made can reveal a lot about how an organization performs. Consider some of these decision-making scenarios:

• Without consulting any of those who will actually do the work, an executive director promises an old friend that his organization will take on a complex project, leaving his staff feeling out of the loop and disgruntled.
• Twelve busy staff members spend numerous hours discussing whether their organization should hire a summer intern, but no one knows who has the final say, and every meeting ends without resolution.
• Several organizations work together to support a single initiative, but none of the participants understand where their responsibilities begin and end. When they disagree, no one has overall authority to decide. In addition, there’s overlap in the work done.

Do these situations resonate?

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/who-decides-mapping-power-and-decision-making-in-nonprofits/

The Children's Center of Hamden currently has multiple employment opportunities available. For more information please visit our website at www.tccoh.org

The Children's Center of Hamden is a private nonprofit organization providing services to children who suffer from one or more of a variety of problems; psychological and social problems; physical and/or sexual abuse; learning disabilities; substance abuse and family trauma.

In a bold new show of contemporary work, artists Judy Atlas, Joy Bush, Rita Hannafin, and Tom Peterson consider the SHAPE OF COLOR, a group show on view at City Gallery this summer. The show will run from Friday, July 9 through Sunday, August 8, with a Closing Reception on Sunday, August 8 from 1pm - 4pm. Visitors may meet individual artists on July 10 (Bush), July 11 (Atlas), July 16 (Peterson), July 17 (Hannafin), July 18 (Hannafin), and July 24 (Atlas).

As is often the case in a group show, it was only upon review of the artists' work that the theme became evident. “What stood out was our bold, vibrant, definitive use of COLOR,” says Joy Bush. “It is clearly what connects our individual styles, mediums and viewpoints. And it is our diverse use of SHAPE — hard, linear, solid, soft, organic — that introduces the distinct mind’s eye of each of us.”

Judy Atlas's abstractions are expressions of the architecture of nature and everyday life. For this show, Atlas explores what happens to color, comparing geometric shapes with softer, organic flowing forms. These abstract paintings celebrate the elements of visual art: color, line, textures, light and intensity. Atlas has been teaching watercolor painting and collage at Creative Arts Workshop, New Haven since 1998. Her work has been featured in numerous solo, group, invitational and juried shows in New England. Atlas has been a member of the City Gallery since 2008.

Photographer Joy Bush presents her colorful, bold Enervate series. “After the chaos of the presidential election. I opened the refrigerator and saw some kale that I had forgotten to cook. It was broken and depleted. I was broken and depleted. The kale epitomized my world. During all of the lies, contradictions, and disruptive behavior, words failed me, but my photographs of these forgotten vegetables could express my state of mind.” Bush’s work has been exhibited in many local and regional galleries, and her photographs have appeared in numerous publications including the Village Voice, The New York Times, and Connecticut Review. She is represented in the permanent collection of the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Mattatuck Museum, Montefiorie Hospital, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH, the Yale Medical Group Art Place in New Haven, and numerous private collections.

Rita Hannafin is City Gallery's newest artist. As a textile artist, she weds her love of color, physical materials, and sewing to shape a story. In her pictorial art quilts, she uses fabric like paint to create shapes and applies free motion quilting to “draw” and play with thread, adding layers of textural elements to the finished pieces. Hannafin is a member of the Studio Art Quilt Associates and the Black Rock Art Guild. Her work is included in the National Registry of Quilts, has been shown at the Slater Memorial Museum, the Whistler House Museum of Art, the Windham Textile and History Museum, and in galleries at Middlesex Hospital, Guilford Art Center , Western Connecticut State University , and Connecticut Hospice.

Tom Peterson, a documentary and fine art photographer, presents a series of archival pigment prints inspired by photographs of modern architectural exteriors. “From these, I created shapes and formations of primary colors. Developed during the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was my effort to escape back into a childhood fondness for coloring with crayons,” he explains. Peterson has received numerous awards, including winning two First Honors at IMAGES, the Shoreline Arts Alliance juried photography show. His 2019 exhibits included Cheshire Academy, New Haven Lawn Club, and City Gallery, where he has been a member since 2009.

SHAPE OF COLOR is free and open to the public, and runs July 9 - August 8, 2021, with a Closing Reception on Sunday, August 8 from 1pm - 4pm. Visitors may meet individual artists on July 10, July 11, July 16, July 17, July 18, and July 24. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Modified gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 1pm - 4 pm, or by appointment. The number of visitors is limited to 4 at a time. All visitors are required to wear a mask and observe social distancing protocols. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

Cesar Aleman, Executive Director of the Connecticut Urban Opportunity Collaborative

June 22, 2021 - For the past several years, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and Fairfield County’s Community Foundation have been working together on collective strategies to help dismantle structural and systemic racism and achieve equity in social and economic mobility in their communities. In January 2021, the three foundations were selected to collectively participate in the inaugural cohort of community foundations in NEON (Nexus for Equity + Opportunity Nationwide).

For the first time, this group of nine regional grant makers from across the nation will work to align goals, strategies, and outcome measures to increase the impact of each individual foundation and demonstrate the aggregate impact of community foundations on their local catchment areas. The NEON cohort hopes to catalyze nationwide progress and attract philanthropic support from individual donors and private foundations. The three Connecticut community foundations are focused on promoting equitable growth and opportunity in urban communities and the newly formed group will be known as the Connecticut Urban Opportunity Collaborative (CUOC).

“While our three community foundations have been working closely over the past several years to promote equitable urban opportunity in the communities we serve, the creation of the Connecticut Urban Opportunity Collaborative will allow us to more effectively collaborate and coordinate on shared priorities,” said Hartford Foundation President Jay Williams. “By working with community foundations from throughout the country, we can share what we are learning with an eye toward developing effective long-term strategies to begin to dismantle systemic and structural racism in our state.”

In support of these efforts, the trio of Connecticut community foundations have hired Cesar Aleman to serve as Director of the CUOC. In this role, Aleman will coordinate a team of community foundation chief executives and senior level staff to develop collective strategies to dismantle structural racism and advance social and economic mobility; aligning the strategic and programmatic efforts of the three foundations to create an actionable plan that builds on each organization’s individual strengths. This work will also involve developing a broad network of relationships with national, regional and local partners and manage collaborative investments including the development and distribution of grant applications, RFPs, monitoring and reporting.

“We all recognize the complexity and breadth of the systemic challenges we face are beyond any single organization’s ability to solve,” said Fairfield County’s Community Foundation President and CEO Juanita James. “By aligning our diversity of experience, talent, expertise and financial resources, we can put our learnings and ideas into action to achieve tangible and sustainable progress to truly achieve equity in our communities and society.”

“By working together with an urban focus, our three community foundations can write a new chapter in philanthropy in our state,” said Community Foundation for Greater New Haven President and CEO William Ginsberg. “Our work together will be to raise and distribute funds to promote greater opportunity and greater equity in Connecticut’s major cities. With sufficient public and private investment, our cities can lead Connecticut’s economic recovery and create opportunities for our urban residents, particularly people of color. CUOC’s goal is to help make that happen.”

Prior to taking in this position, Aleman was an organizer for the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance where he developed relationships with diverse communities and organizations to build power and implement practical solutions to specific social justice issues that currently include: housing, education, gun violence, criminal justice, and healthcare. Aleman has also provided communications and advocacy consultation as an independent contractor for the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund and was a racial equity consultant and strategist for RE-Center, Race & Equity in Education.

“The state of Connecticut is consistently ranked as one of the wealthiest states in the union, yet we are home to urban areas whose residents have consistently been denied equitable access to resources and have suffered the effects of poverty for generations,” Aleman said. “This collaborative has an opportunity to build on the work of each foundation to make unprecedented changes in our state. I am committed to work with our communities, our foundations, and public and private partners across the state and the country to make Connecticut a vibrant and prosperous home for all our residents.”

About The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven in Connecticut is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the U.S. and was established in 1928 as the permanent charitable endowment for New Haven and its surrounding communities of: Ansonia, Bethany, Branford, Cheshire, Derby, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Milford, North Branford, North Haven, Orange, Oxford, Seymour, Shelton, Wallingford, West Haven, and Woodbridge. In 2020, The Foundation began implementing a 5-year strategic plan and enacted new mission and vision statements toward expanding opportunity and equity in Greater New Haven. In 2021, it launched Stepping Forward, a $26 million commitment to addressing the impact of COVID-19 and advancing racial equity. The Foundation’s mission is to inspire, support, inform, listen to and collaborate with the people and organizations of Greater New Haven to build an ever more connected, inclusive, equitable and philanthropic community.

For more than three generations, generous local donors have built The Community Foundation’s endowment by establishing permanent funds or making gifts to existing funds that distribute grants to a broad variety of issues and organizations. These donors, past and present, make their gifts to ensure that programs and causes that matter most to them will be supported today and forever. As of December 31, 2020, The Foundation’s assets were valued at more than $720 million. For more information about The Foundation visit www.cfgnh.org or follow @cfgnh on facebook and twitter.

About Fairfield County’s Community Foundation

Fairfield County’s Community Foundation promotes philanthropy as a means to create change in Fairfield County, focusing on innovative and collaborative solutions to critical issues impacting the community. Individuals, families, corporations and organizations can establish charitable funds or contribute to existing funds. The Community Foundation is in compliance with the Council on Foundations’ national standards and has awarded over $337 million in grants to nonprofits in Fairfield County and beyond since 1992. As a trusted nonprofit partner and thought leader, the organization brings together community organizers, business experts, and philanthropists to close the opportunity gap in Fairfield County with a focus on eliminating disparities in education, employment, housing, and health. Our goal is to create a vital and inclusive community, where every individual has the opportunity to thrive. Learn more at FCCFoundation.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIN. Listen to the Fairfield County Thrives podcast at https://fccfoundation.org/podcasts/

About the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving

The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving is the community foundation for Hartford and 28 surrounding towns. Through partnerships, the Foundation seeks to strengthen communities in Greater Hartford by putting philanthropy in action to dismantle structural racism and achieve equity in social and economic mobility. Made possible by the gifts of generous individuals, families and organizations, the Foundation has awarded grants of more than $849 million since its founding in 1925. For more information, visit www.hfpg.org or call 860-548-1888.

Very insightful article on the economic state of Black America by McKinsey & Company. 

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/the-economic-state-of-black-america-what-is-and-what-could-be?cid=other-soc-lkn-mip-mck-oth-2106--&sid=5021465371&linkId=121926859

Important changes to the Child Tax Credit will help many families get advance payments of the Child Tax Credit starting in the summer of 2021.

The IRS will pay half the total credit amount in advance monthly payments. You  will claim the other half when you file your 2021 income tax return. We’ll make the first advance payment on July 15, 2021. For a full schedule of payments, see When will the IRS begin issuing the advance Child Tax Credit?

Who Should Use This Tool

Use this tool to report your qualifying children born before 2021 if you:

• Are not required to file a 2020 tax return, didn’t file one and don’t plan to; and
• Have a main home in the United States for more than half of the year.

Also, if you did not get the full amounts of the first and second Economic Impact Payment, you may use this tool if you:

• Are not required to file a 2020 tax return, didn’t file and don’t plan to, and
• Want to claim the 2020 Recovery Rebate Credit and get your third Economic Impact Payment.

Do not use this tool if you:

• Filed or plan to file a 2020 tax return; or
• Claimed all your dependents on a 2019 tax return, including by reporting their information in 2020 using the Non-Filers: Enter Payment Info Here tool; or
• Were married at the end of 2020 unless you use the tool with your spouse and include your spouse’s information; or
• Are a resident of a U.S. territory; or
• Do not have a main home in the United States for more than half the year and, if you are married, your spouse does not have a main home in the United States for more than half the year; or
• Do not have a qualifying child who was born before 2021 and had a Social Security number issued before May 17, 2021.

CHEFA Announces FY 2022 Targeted Grant Program Letter of Interest RFP for Statewide Workforce Development opens today!

Attention CT Workforce Development Providers: Nonprofit organizations, and public educational institutions as defined under C.G.S. §10a-1, will be eligible to apply for the FY 2022 CHEFA Targeted Grant Program through a Letter of Interest (LOI) RFP. The focus for the program will be statewide workforce development; programs must be operational in at least three Connecticut counties in order to be eligible. A particular emphasis will be on programs that do not receive federal and other government funding or fill gaps in federal/government funding. The LOI will open on June 14, 2021, with a due date of July 12, 2021.

Due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, CHEFA will utilize a LOI process, prior to a full application process. After a thorough committee review of all LOIs, a group of organizations will be invited to submit full applications. All organizations will be notified of results of invitation to apply, or declination by August 30, 2021. 

The RFP guidelines and instructions for applying are included here. 
For more information, please contact Betty Sugerman Weintraub, Grant Program Manager at bweintraub@chefa.com or 860-761-8428. #workforcedevelopment

Targeted Grant Program | CHEFA

1000+ square feet of lovely office/multi-purpose space is available for rent at Christian Community Action's newly renovated facility at 660 Winchester Avenue.  This lower-level space features a private entrance, private kitchen & bath, large common room, and several generous storage areas. Rental includes shared access to an on-site conference room, 24/7 on-site superintendent, and other shared facilities & services.   Ideal renter will be a not-for-profit with a mission that complements the services CCA is providing on-site to families in transition, but any compatible use will be considered.  For photos, please see this link:  https://www.farnamgroup.com/homes-for-sale-details/660-WINCHESTER-AVENUE-FRONT-LOWE-NEW-HAVEN-CT-06511/170399281/17/. ; Asking $1500/month, OBO.

For more info contact Rebecca Weiner, Betsy Grauer Realty, 203-687-8227.

New Haven Board of Education members have a chance of getting an A, but they will have to work for it.

They face tough grading from students involved in the New Haven Climate Movement. The students promise to dole out As only if the board spends $6.6 million in federal aid on climate education and upgrades.

http://www.newhavenindependent.org/index.php/archives/entry/youth_climate_activists_grade_ed_board/

Hey Greater New Haven Emerging Nonprofit Leaders! The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (CT) is entering its last week to recruit for its new BIPOC Cohort for Nonprofit Leadership.

This comprehensive program is for currently employed nonprofit staff of color who work for nonprofit organizations serving Greater New Haven and who aspire to senior leadership positions in the local nonprofit sector.

This will be a two-year experience that provides in-depth nonprofit leadership and management development, general operating support for participating nonprofits, a comprehensive organizational assessment, networking, and mentoring/coaching support.

The application deadline is Friday, June 4. By July 16, 2021, 10 people will be chosen for the cohort, based on career goals in nonprofit leadership and management in Greater New Haven.

Learn more, help spread the word to your networks!  #racialequity #nonprofitleadership #socialjustice

BIPOC Cohort for Nonprofit Leadership - The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (cfgnh.org)

I sit here every day,

Looking at the sky

Ever wondering why

I dream my dreams away

And I'm living for today

In my mind's eye.

These opening lines from a 1966 hit single by UK rock band Small Faces could very well have been written to describe our experience of 2020. Instead, they serve as introduction to Sheila Kaczmarek’s show SMALL FACES AND SHADOWS, on view at City Gallery from Saturday, June 5 until Sunday, June 27. Visitors can meet Kaczmarek, a founding member of City Gallery, on June 5, June 6, and June 27.

SMALL FACES AND SHADOWS comprises six mixed-media collages incorporating silk tissue and inks. In each, Kaczmarek creates the appearance of layers and indistinct shapes and shadows. Some of the clay forms were pit fired to give unexpected results, then incorporated randomly in the body of the work. Two handmade paper paintings began as an experiment for Kaczmarek and lend an element of surprise to the show, as do the (small) faces of five clay heads and masks.

While the show's title may have been inspired by two 1960s rock bands, the work in this exhibit is very much a reflection of our 2020 pandemic experience: indistinct, unexpected, random, experiment, surprise.

As an added bonus for Gallery visitors, founding member Jane Harris will be showing several of her recent sketch books. Harris, a long-time friend and collaborator with Kaczmarek, received a B.A. from Brown University, studied at The Art Students League of New York, apprenticed with designer Lester Beall, and worked on the staff of Apparel Arts (Esquire) and Harper’s Bazaar. She’s been featured in solo and collaborative installations at Silvermine Guild Art Center (New Canaan, CT), New Britain Museum of American Art, and the John Slade Ely House, among others.

Kaczmarek studied art at St. Martin’s School of Art, London; UCLA, California; and the Academie des Beaux Arts, Brussels. She has taught art for over 20 years. She is a founding member of City Gallery, President of the Guilford Art League, and served on the Board of the New Haven Paint and Clay Club. She works with mixed media, including transferred photographic images. Her interest lies in both the process of layering and in stripping away surfaces. She apprenticed in the ceramic studio of the Guilford Art Center for five years. Her work with clay incorporates paint, metal and encaustic wax. Most recently, she has been intrigued by the complexity and unexpected nature of assembling multiple organic forms.

SMALL FACES AND SHADOWS is free and open to the public, and runs June 5 - June 27, 2021. Visitors can Meet the Artist on June 5, 6 and 27, from 2PM - 4PM. City Gallery is located at 994 State Street, New Haven, CT 06511. Modified gallery hours are Friday - Sunday, 1pm - 4 pm, or by appointment. The number of visitors is limited to 4 at a time. All visitors are required to wear a mask and observe social distancing protocols. For further information please contact City Gallery, info@city-gallery.org, www.city-gallery.org.

We are looking for Volunteers for Friday May 21st 1:30-5pm for CT Food Bank Distribution at Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center 428 Columbus Ave in parking lot.  Please contact me at rmoody@cornellscott.org if you would like to volunteer.  Thanks

Come join our proud team of community health heroes!

FHCHC will be holding a job fair at our Shoreline Family Health Care location, 221 West Main Street in Branford. The job fair will be on Saturday May, 22^nd from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm.

Please see flyer for more details.

On Monday, May 10th, the FDA approved emergency use of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 12 to 15.

Fair Haven Community Health Care is offering walk-up COVID vaccinations at Wilbur Cross High School, 181 Mitchell Drive in New Haven. Our vaccine clinic will be taking walk-ups Tuesday to Friday, from 10 am to 2 pm. Please note that children under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult to their vaccination.

You can also make an appointment for a COVID vaccine here.

Unaccompanied children refugees arriving in American is not a new immigrant story. In this 2017 Interview, remaster for podcast, Terry Gomez Lombardi speaks with Georgian Lussier, MidLifeMatter Host about her personal Operation Pedro Pan story.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1197485/8181265-terry-gomez-lombardi-operation-pedro-pan-cuba-with-georgian-lussier-midlife-matters-wpaa-tv.mp3?download=true

Terry's story starts with life in Cuba under Fidel Castro. Learn why her mother decided to send her away. What happens when she arrives as a refugee. The Foster Family & school experience and what qualities helped her emerge from adversity.