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The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, the region’s permanent endowment and largest grantmaker to local nonprofits, is accepting grant applications from eligible nonprofit organizations through March 27, 2015 for its Responsive Grants process. Responsive Grants are generally awarded to address operating, programmatic or capacity building needs. Amounts vary from $7,500 and up; eligibility restrictions apply, including adherence to The Community Foundation’s anti-discrimination policy. Applicants who are unfamiliar with the grant process are encouraged to register for an informational webinar on February 11, 2015 at 1:00 – 3:00 pm. For complete details and to apply online, visit www.cfgnh.org/grants.

Generally more than $2 million in multi-year grants is awarded through The Community Foundation’s Responsive Grant process, which occurs in two-stages and takes approximately six months to complete.  Responsive Grants represent only one element of The Foundation’s overall grantmaking, which has exceeded $20 million in recent years. 

Thanks to the generosity of three generations of donors, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven awarded $21 million in grants and distributions in 2013 and has an endowment of over $430 million comprising more than 830 individually named funds. In addition to its grantmaking, The Community Foundation helps build a stronger community by taking measures to improve student achievement, reduce New Haven’s infant mortality rate, promote local philanthropy through www.giveGreater.org and encourage community awareness on issues important to our region. For more information, visit our website at www.cfgnh.org, find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/cfgnh or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cfgnh. 

Nonprofit boards often establish committees to "take care of" tasks the whole board might not want to do or might need done on their behalf. Often enough these tasks embody what I refer to as "taking care of the homework" that can helpfully inform the full board when decisions are to be made.

Finance Committees are an excellent example of a small sub-body of a nonprofit that can take a magnifying look at the income and expense statement and the balance sheet to be sure the rest of the board understands the nonprofit's financial condition at a given point of time and most importantly, understand what if any action the board should take. Executive Committees can be helpful in organizing meeting agendas and provide support to the executive director. A strategic planning task force can do the support work in moving a planning process along. All of these committees and task forces have a common function of doing the homework of the board and making recommendations, not decisions.

Lately I've run across some boards that have established personnel committees. A personnel committee or task force (is established with a specific time-limited assignment) may make sense when it's time to ensure that personnel policies need an update to ensure compliance with federal and state regulations and laws (this is a fiduciary responsibility). A task force established for recruiting an executive director and maybe even managing the annual executive performance review likely also makes sense.

But what about a personnel committee that is involved in hiring personnel beyond the executive? I am a subscriber to the philosophy that the individual who supervises and evaluates, hires. This would mean to me that the only staff person "hired" by the board is the executive director. And subsequently, the only reason for a personnel task force: updating personnel policies.

Thoughts?

The family child care providers in All Our Kin’s network come from all walks of life. Some have been working with young children all their lives. Others, like Dionne Lamothe, an All Our Kin provider, have had long careers in other fields.

Dionne Lamothe was born in Saint Michel de l’Atalaye, a city located in the Central Plateau of Haiti, and she started singing when she was just four years old. “It is in my blood,” she told me at her home in December. “I was born with it, and nothing can stop that.” Even as a child, her talent was impossible to ignore.

By the time she was 20 years old, her voice was well known throughout Haiti, but as a woman singer, her path was limited. She wanted to perform with Haiti’s Big Bands – the most famous of which was called Bossa Combo – but at the time, “they never allowed a woman singer to do much.”

“I said, ‘Nuh, uh. That has to stop. I have this talent that God gave me.’ Other people didn’t like it, but then they heard me sing. They started saying, ‘this is great.’ I was one of the best in Haiti.” In the 1980s, Dionne became the first young woman singer to perform with Bossa Combo. “We went on tour all over. France, Canada, Florida, Chicago, New York, Canada, places with big Haitian communities. I sang in every language – English, French, Spanish, Creole.”

Click here to read the rest of Dionne's story at All Our Words, the blog of All Our Kin. 

Solar Youth has extended its deadline for Spring 2015 Environmental Educator Internship positions! Any teenager enrolled in a New Haven high school is eligible to apply. Please visit our website by clicking here and selecting the links in the "Youth Staff" section for applications and further interns

hip information. The deadline is this Friday, January 16th. If you have any questions or concerns, please call Solar Youth's office at (203)387-4189. 

We look forward to hearing from you!

Happy, Happy New Year

May This Year be a Great Year for All.

Grove Street Cemetery will again be hosting Historical Walking tours for all public, private, schools, groups, etc.

So on May 2nd (EVERY Saturday) the tours will begin the season at 11:00am and will continue until November 21st.

Then May 3rd (EVERY Sunday) the tours will begin the season at Noon and will continue until November 22nd.

If you wish to schedule a tour, please call Patricia Illingworth at 203.389.5403 or email p.b.i.newhaven@att.net.  

Looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones.....

Patricia Illingworth

Chief Docent 

Professor Walter Mischel, professor of psychology and the creator of the Marshmallow Test experiments about children and self-control, recently spoke at an All Our Kin event in Bridgeport. To read parts of his lecture and learn about early brain development, toxic stress, and the "biology of disadvantage," click here.

What constitutes meaningful nonprofit board conversation? I pose that meaningful nonprofit board conversation, (usually what goes on in a board meetingand/or board planning session informs and/or results in action around fiduciary and strategic policy, planning and evaluation.

One of the topics I believe should be on the table of many human service nonprofits: pay-for-success. PMany US state and federal legislators are considering payfor-success as an answer to both cost savings and accountability. Here's a description from the Wall Street Journal:

Historically, providers of social services to at-risk and vulnerable populations have been paid for their efforts rather than for the outcomes they effect. But the past four House budgets constructed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) have emphasized measuring the impact of federal funds spent on education, food security, and other social needs. Such programs typically reimburse operators for meeting specific benchmarks in their efforts to keepclients out of prison or end homelessness. These policy innovations could help improve outcomes for at-risk populations while stewarding scarce federal dollars.

Federal job training programs are one place to look. Traditionally, such programs have focused on training job seekers independent of whether the training results in people getting and keeping a job, leaving few ways to measure the effectiveness ofthe approximately $18 billion the government spends every year to train those who need work.

In pay-for-success job training programs, however, market forces are applied to the process of calibrating employer needs and trainee education levels, matching trained applicants to employers with job openings, and providing supports to help ensure long-term success on the job. The programs typically work by making a portion of a provider’s reimbursement contingent on meeting an initial benchmark—usually job placement in a sector for which the employee was trained—and paying the remainder of the fee when a second benchmark, such as continued employment for a full year, is met. The Australian Department of Employment reported this summer that the cost of placing jobseekers has plummeted from $16,000 to $3,500 per trainee, even as the number of trainees getting and keeping jobs has doubled.

A consensus is also developing in the GOP around an accountable, efficient approach to poverty alleviation. Rep. Ryan has visited nonprofits around the country helping those caught in the cycle of poverty and dependency, and he recently proposed a plan to address endemic poverty. Language in the recent Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, championed by Rep.Susan Brooks (R., Ind.) and Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio), allows governors to use as much as 10% of their federal job training funds for these types of pay-for-performance, outcome-based programs.

Incoming House Budget Chairman Tom Price has said that he wants the GOP budget to give “the greatest amount of opportunity to the greatest number of Americans.” Incorporating policy guidance in the budget resolution to build and test pay-for-success models would send a message.

Social programs have a contract to keep with those who fund them and those they serve. Pay-for-success policies update the conservative lexicon to re-emphasize focus on outcomes–and empathy. By incorporating such strategies into the next budget, Republicans could improve the economic prospects of those Americans who need help the most—and improve their own prospects for 2016.

Juleanna Glover is a corporate consultant and Republican policy and communications adviser. She is an adviser to America Forward, a nonprofit that advocates accountability in government spending on social programs. She is on Twitter: @juleannaglover.

But, while pay-for-success may be the right strategy for the government, nonprofit boards must really examine their core values and mission as well as business model to discern how pay-for-success would affect the institution and their clients. Perhaps a pay-for-success task force should be created to understand all the issues and impact and be called upon to lead a board conversation that results in a clear direction with parameters. And, once ready to adopt, imagine the many and varied internal policies, practices, training, and /reporting/evaluation activities that will need be put in place to achieve the pay-for-success goal. Note, pay-for-success may not be right for every nonprofit.

Chapel Haven's Admissions Office invites families to check out our award-winning postsecondary school and transition program for adults with a variety of disabilities.

Founded in 1972, Chapel Haven is a nationally accredited transitional living program and approved private special education school founded in 1972 in New Haven, Connecticut, with a mission of teaching adults with cognitive disabilities and social disabilities to live independent and productive lives. Chapel Haven has grown to serve more than 250 adults (18 years of age and older) in the residence and the community with three distinct programs; REACH, Asperger’s Syndrome Adult Transition (ASAT), and Chapel Haven West (Tucson, AZ).

Chapel Haven also offers classes, social communication therapy and supported living services for families living within the New Haven area. Information about extended services provided by Chapel Haven available upon request.

To learn more about our programs, please call the Admissions Office at (203) 397-1714, ext. 148. Watch for workshops and open houses this winter and spring. You also can learn more online at www.chapelhaven.org.

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