The Boston Foundation announces over $2.4 million in first quarter FY22 grants

Boston – The Boston Foundation today announced its discretionary grants for the first quarter of its 2022 Fiscal Year, totaling $2.44 million in grants to 21 organizations. Of the 21 grants, 18 are single-year grants, two are multi-year and one is a reimbursable grant, expected to be repaid with the funds then made available to be granted out again.

“This slate of grantees includes several organizations that the Foundation has supported in the past but whose work continues to demonstrate the commitment to equity at the heart of our work during the triple pandemic of COVID, racial injustice and economic inequity,” said Lee Pelton, President and CEO of the Boston Foundation. “These grantees fit well in our broader portfolio of support we are fortunate to provide in partnership with our donors and other funds held at the Foundation.”

Education and Success Boston

A series of grants from Success Boston provides continuing support for Success Boston liaisons, who play a critical role connecting Success Boston students and coaches at four Greater Boston colleges - Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, Bunker Hill and Roxbury Community Colleges and UMass-Boston. The college completion initiative recently released new data showing a measurable impact for Success Boston coaching in keeping students persisting through higher education. 

Support for Boston’s First Stand-Alone Birthing Center

The Foundation is proud to make a $300,000, two-year investment in the Neighborhood Birth Center, a nonprofit, community-led startup designed to expand access to childbirth and postpartum services and improve equity in care for women of color in Boston. The funds will be used to hire clinical staff for the center, which is slated to open in 2022 or 2023 as one element of a multi-purpose facility co-housing the Center and artists, activists, and other health-based organizations.

Institute for Nonprofit Practice

The Boston Foundation was also pleased to continue support for the growth of the Institute for Nonprofit Practice, which has been a Foundation grantee since its earliest days. INP is replicating its successful programs for nonprofit leaders on a national level - with more than 90% of participants saying the program has improved their ability to build a healthy high performing team culture, improved their skills in critical business areas, improved their skills in implementing strategies that increase diversity and inclusion, and helped them build networks to improve their organizational resources and impact.

The full list of discretionary grantees and descriptions is below.

DISCRETIONARY GRANTS:

Education: College Completion

Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology: A $50,000 one-year project support grant for a Success Boston Liaison to provide support to Success Boston coaches and students. This grant will enable BFIT to continue to employ a formal Success Boston Liaison to connect coaches and students with resources on campus, participate in initiative convenings, and provide data and updates to the network to increase college completion among BPS graduates. 

Bunker Hill Community College: A $50,000 one-year project support grant for a Success Boston Liaison to provide support to Success Boston coaches and students. This grant will enable Bunker Hill Community College to continue to employ a formal Success Boston Liaison to connect coaches and students with resources on campus, participate in initiative convenings, and provide data and updates to the network to increase college completion among BPS graduates. 

Northern Essex Community College Foundation, Inc.:  A $45,015 one-year project support grant for Northern Essex Community College Foundation, which facilitates the college’s connections to regional organizations and identifies opportunities for collaboration and new revenue sources, to support the continued community college sector-wide integration of Handshake, a leading career services management platform. 

Roxbury Community College: A $50,000 one-year project support grant for a Success Boston Liaison to provide support to Success Boston coaches and students. This grant will enable Roxbury Community College to continue to employ a formal Success Boston Liaison to connect coaches and students with resources on campus, participate in initiative convenings, and provide data and updates to the network to increase college completion among BPS graduates. 

UMass Boston: A $50,000 one-year project support grant to the University of Massachusetts Foundation for a Success Boston Liaison to provide support to Success Boston coaches and students at UMass-Boston. This grant will enable UMass-Boston to continue to employ a formal Success Boston Liaison to connect coaches and students with resources on campus, participate in initiative convenings, and provide data and updates to the network to increase college completion among BPS graduates. 
 

Education: Structural Reform

Agncy Design, Inc./Boston Public Schools: An $80,000 one-year project support grant to Agncy Design, Inc., a nonprofit design firm working closely with the Boston Public Schools, to finalize the district's Vision of a Graduate and to work with a subset of high schools to operationalize the high school reform priorities of the city. The grant funds will help high schools operationalize the reform efforts and redesign their program offerings to better prepare students for success in postsecondary.
 

Education: Early Childhood

United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley: A $100,000 one-year project support grant to the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley for its Shared Services Program, which provides support, coaching, and professional development to Family Childcare Providers in Greater Boston, to help to stabilize Family Childcare, small businesses which provide affordable care to families with young children.
 

Health and Wellness

Neighborhood Birth Center: A $300,000 two-year general operating support grantpayable to Resist, Inc., fiscal sponsor for the Neighborhood Birth Center, a community-led startup, to launch Boston's first stand-alone birthing center, to hire clinical staff who will accelerate the launch. Helping to launch Boston's only independent birth center will increase options for birthing people, which will fuel the effort to look for different and better ways to serve women, especially women of color, whose maternal mortality rates due to complications from childbirth are twice as high as white women. 

Sportsmen's Tennis and Enrichment Center: A $500,000 reimbursable grant to Sportsmen’s Tennis and Enrichment Center, which will provide near-term support to help launch the first phase of their capital campaign.

Jobs and Economic Development

Black Economic Council of Massachusetts: A $50,000 one-year general operating support grant to Black Economic Council of Massachusetts (BECMA), fiscal agent for the Coalition for an Equitable Economy (CEE), a collaboration of business serving organizations working to build an equitable small business ecosystem in Greater Boston. The grant will help fund CEE's first staff member, who will work to build capacity and streamline processes to better position the Coalition for greater impact.

Business Equity Fund: A $150,000 one-year general operating support grant to the Boston Foundation, to support the operations of the Business Equity Fund, an initiative of the Economic Inclusion strategy that gives patient capital to entrepreneurs of color to help them grow their businesses, create good jobs, and build wealth within their communities. The grant will be used to fund the operational costs of the BEF.

SkillWorks: A $350,000 one-year general operating support grant to the Boston Foundation for SkillWorks, an initiative that targets the Boston region’s skill gaps and systemic challenges by expanding employer engagement in healthcare, information technology/technology, and hospitality to aggregate better labor market intelligence to inform training programs in the region.

Initiative for a Competitive Inner City: A $25,000 one-year general operating support grant to Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a national nonprofit research and strategy organization and the leading authority on U.S. inner city economies and the businesses that thrive there, for its Boston Inner City Capital Connections program. The grant will strengthen under-resourced communities throughout the Greater Boston Area, connecting residents to resources and services that advance inclusive economic mobility and job creation.

Latina Circle/Amplify Latinx: A $50,000 one-year project support grant to Latina Circle, dba Amplify Latinx, whose mission is to build Latinx economic & political power by significantly increasing Latinx civic engagement, economic opportunity, and leadership representation across sectors, to support its PowerUp Latinx initiative. The grant will expand Amplify's capacity to reach more Latinx-owned businesses, create visibility for these enterprises, facilitate connections to existing resources, and advocate for capital and equitable contracting opportunities.
 

Neighborhoods and Housing

Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA): A $100,000 one-year general operating support grant to Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, an agency that encourages the production and preservation of housing that is affordable to low- and moderate-income families and individuals and to foster diverse and sustainable communities through planning and community development.

Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath): A $50,000 one-year general operating support grant to Economic Mobility Pathways (EMPath), an agency that transforms people's lives by helping them move out of poverty, and provides other institutions with the tools to systematically do the same. 

Social Justice Ecology: Movements Strategy

Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust: A $30,000 one-year general operating support grant to support and grow the operations of Boston Neighborhood Community Land Trust (BCNLT), an organization dedicated to confronting housing and racial injustices that have chronically destabilized BIPOC residents and neighborhoods in Mattapan, Dorchester, and Roxbury. 

Boston Women’s Fund, Inc: A $100,000 one-year project support grant to the Boston Women’s Fund, Inc., a progressive foundation that supports community-based organizations and grassroots initiatives run by women and girls to create a society based on racial, economic and social justice, to support a third cohort of the Women of Color Leadership Circle. 

Center for Economic Democracy (CED): A $30,000 one-year general operating support grant to the Center for Economic Democracy (CED), which has been working to mobilize and organize people-powered coalitions of community groups, labor unions, civil rights, environmental justice, and faith organizations/community residents on the multitude of changes and upcoming shifts in Boston’s civic landscape.

Institute for Nonprofit Practice: A $250,000 two-year general operating support grant to the Institute for Nonprofit Practice, an organization that transforms communities by equipping the most promising social impact leaders with the skills, networks, confidence, and resources they need to lead effectively, advance justice, and make their organizations more effective, innovative, and sustainable. 

Union Capital Boston (UCB):A $30,000 one year general operating support grant to Union Capital Boston (UCB) to help develop and launch a new leadership training program for community residents that creates spaces for UCB members to access additional pathways of skill development and opportunities for those who want to take on greater civic, service, and entrepreneurial models of leadership. 
 

The Boston Foundation Board of Directors also acknowledged more than $1 million in payments or requests for payment made between cycles on by special funds at the Foundation in accordance with the specific terms of each fund. These special funds have advisors/advisory committees that make recommendations for the re-granting of these funds. Examples of these grants included: 

Arts Connect International, Inc.
$40,000: For project support for the Cultural Equity Incubator

MASSCreative, Inc.
$10,000: For support of the Create the Vote Coalition

Inspiring Educators, Inc.
$40,000: For support of Trauma Trainings

Playworks
$50,000: For Physical Activity for Pandemic Recovery

Abilities Dance, Inc.
$25,000: For general operating support

Disability Policy Consortium
$50,000: For the From Institutions to Independence program

Human Media
$29,822: For the Aging at Home documentary project

Philanthropy Massachusetts
$50,000: For support of the GK Fund

Rogerson Communities
$25,000: For general operating support for services to the elderly

Silent Rhythms, Inc.
$25,000: For general operating support

Visiting Nurse and Community Care
$25,000: For general operating support for services to elders

The BASE
$10,000: For general operating support

Big Sister Association of Greater Boston, Inc.
$10,000: For general operating support

Local Initiatives Support Corporation
$10,000: For general operating support

Pleasant Hill Baptist Church
$15,000: For the Trotter Park summer Peace Program

Black Economic Council of Massachusetts
$30,000: For the Accountability Project

MassINC
$16,500: To support the April 2021 Poll of Boston Registered Voters

Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation, Inc.
$25,000: For the report: The National and State Racial Divide: An Analysis of Data for Measuring Progress
 

The acknowledgments also included several other grants, many announced previously in other Boston Foundation communications, including:

Equality Fund: $146,000
Forward Fund (King Boston): $200,000
COVID-19 Response Fund: $912,300
Capacity Building Fund: $136,000
Asian Community Fund: $25,000
Latino Equity Fund: $70,000