To our funders, with thanks and gratitude
Dear funders,
While we feel this way all year at TFN, in the spirit of Thanksgiving I want to take a moment to express gratitude for our network of funders and partners dedicated to unraveling society’s most difficult problems, be it environmental injustice, irresponsible growth or inequitable policies, and whose work may often feel thankless. Now more than ever, we see that philanthropy can be relied upon to bring together the right people, ideas and resources to find solutions to those problems.
I’m also exceedingly grateful to the TFN team — our community of staff, contractors, and board of directors — who work so diligently to ensure that our network continues to thrive and grow.
Especially in a year where it seems every news cycle brings a story of unimaginable loss or a startling reminder of the deep-seated divisions we face as a country, it is heartening to be surrounded by people who are dedicated to supporting the important work of building communities that are more equitable, sustainable and resilient. Not just for some but for all.
We thank you for the work you do today — and every day.
What are we learning about in December?
What are we learning about in December?
We have two upcoming webinars that may be of interest to our funders:
Impact Investing Where It Matters Most
10 a.m. PT, Dec. 5
Join Smart Growth California for a funders-only video conference on the challenges and opportunities for impact investing in low-income communities and other communities in which it is typically harder to deploy capital. You'll hear from The Kresge Foundation about their work investing in climate resilience and water as well as The California Endowment about the upcoming launch of the Freshworks 2.0, a program-related investment for healthy food access. Register here.
Speakers include:
- Judi Larsen and Amy Chung, The California Endowment
- Cat Howard, Northern California Community Loan Fund
- Jalonne White-Newsome, The Kresge Foundation (and a 2017 TFN PLACES Fellow)
- Moderator: Katherine Pease, Director of Impact Investing, Cornerstone Capital Group
Greenspace Conservation in Metropolitan America: Partnerships That Benefit People and Nature
3 p.m. ET Dec. 12.
Join TFN's monthly Learning Network Webinar to learn more about the promise of landscape conservation within metropolitan areas, the Metropolitan Greenspace Alliance's national efforts, and the role of funders in this movement. This webinar is organized by TFN's Intermountain West Funder Network. Register here.
The conversation will include:
- Deborah January-Bevers, President and CEO of Houston Wilderness
- Michael Wetter, Executive Director of Intertwine Alliance
- Claire Robinson, Founder and Managing Director of Amigos de los Rios
- Peter Pollock, Manager of Western Programs at Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, who will moderate the call.
Partners for Places: "Can technology create inclusive cities?"
At the heart of any sustainability effort is hope for the future: That the right combination of people, resources and ideas will result in communities that are healthier, safer and stronger for generations to come.
So what role does technology have in these communities of the future?
Rob Phocas, energy and sustainability manager for the City of Charlotte, N.C., explores this topic in a recent contribution to CIO Review's "Smart City" special edition. Charlotte was one of seven cities to receive a matching grant through the Partners for Places Equity Pilot Initiative earlier this year. The equity pilot initiative supports cities and their place-based foundation partners to develop local approaches for prioritizing equity in sustainability and/or climate action. (This two-year pilot program is supported by the generosity of The Kendeda Fund and The Kresge Foundation.)"
"I like the latest 'smart' technology as much as the next person. Be it a smart streetlight, a digital kiosk, or a solar powered bench that charges your smart device and counts passers-by, it is hard not to find futuristic features appealing. But as a sustainability director and public servant, I must look past that cool factor," writes Phocas. "At a recent smart cities conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the conference organizers asked the presenters to answer a question during their remarks: 'Can innovative smart city technology create coherent and inclusive cities?'”
His answer:
"What started as an industry-lead effort focused on promoting the latest gadgets to municipalities is shifting to a municipal-lead effort to understand which of these gadgets can help staff achieve their mayor and/or city council’s goals of creating a great quality of life for their residents. Charlotte’s approach is no different, which is why my answer to the question about technology creating coherent and inclusive cities was, 'No.' It is people, after understanding the unique needs of their residents, who will use these innovative smart technologies to create coherent and inclusive cities, not technology alone."
Read Phocas' take on smart city technologies, and learn more about how Charlotte is working to plan for its future by focusing on meaningful community engagement, in the the full story.
TFN Learning Network Call | Greenspace Conservation in Metropolitan America
Don't forget to register for this month's TFN Learning Network Call!
Greenspace Conservation in Metropolitan America: Partnerships That Benefit People and Nature
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET
| Across metropolitan America, conservation coalitions are working in urban areas to achieve ecological, social, and economic outcomes. These partnerships navigate both the complex ecosystem challenges, as well as complex organizational environments of metropolitan regions. They work across multiple jurisdictions and issue areas, and use resources from the public, private, non-profit, and academic sectors.
In 2009, Houston Wilderness hosted an inaugural meeting of what would become the Metropolitan Greenspace Alliance (MGA). Today MGA is a national network of networks connecting the urban environment to the natural environment for the benefit of the people and nature within urban areas. Join TFN’s December 13th webinar to learn more about the promise of landscape conservation within metropolitan areas, MGA’s national efforts, and the role of funders in this movement. MGA coalitions impact many critical issues facing urban areas today: The conversation will include Deborah January-Bevers, President and CEO of Houston Wilderness, Michael Wetter, Executive Director of Intertwine Alliance, Claire Robinson, Founder and Managing Director of Amigos de los Rios and Peter Pollock, Manager of Western Programs at Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, who will moderate the call. Please register for this funder-only webinar by Friday, December 8, 2017 to be sure that you receive log-in details. |
From our members: Pisces Foundation's David Beckman on tackling water resource challenges
Water affects every aspect of our lives, both as individuals and as communities.
"Despite water’s importance to each and all of us, as a society we have not invested in the solutions that will enable us as a nation to keep up with the challenges water resources face today—population growth, aging infrastructure, loss of natural vegetation, pollution from farm fields and from cities, all made more challenging by climate change," writes David Beckman, president of the Pisces Foundation, a TFN member. "That is why when we started the Pisces Foundation, the question we wrestled with was not whether to make water one of our focus areas. Rather, the question was: given its importance and complexity, how do we best tackle it?"
Beckman explores the answer to this question in a recent Pisces Foundation blog post, Water: A Key to Our Collective Future.
Be sure to read the full post, and feel free to leave your own ideas on tackling the tricky issue of water resource challenges in the comments section below.
Meet our newest Partners for Places grantees!
We're proud to announce the latest recipients of our Partners for Places matching grants!
Eleven cities across the United States will receive nearly a million dollars for sustainability efforts that largely benefit low-income neighborhoods. That means 11 cities, 11 sustainable solutions.
These sustainability efforts will take place in cities both large and small, from a project in Los Angeles that tackles park scarcity in the city’s most densely populated areas to an agricultural program in Cary, N.C., that supports women and minority farmers while giving low-income residents greater access to healthy food.
The funding is through the Partners for Places matching grants program, which pairs city governments with philanthropy to support sustainability projects that promote a healthy environment, a strong economy, and well-being for all residents.
Three of the grantees — Bend, Ore., Lancaster, Pa., and New Orleans — will use the Partners for Places matching grants to help craft a climate action plan, a blueprint that describes the policies and measures that cities will enact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase their community's resilience to climate change.
“I think we have a commitment to future generations to take steps to make sure at a minimum we leave this planet in the same shape we found it,” said Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray in a video explaining the city’s efforts to address climate issues — and plan for its future. “There’s no better place to start this type of thing than at the local level.”
Partners for Places, led by the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities in partnership with the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, will provide $484,000 in funding to 11 cities through its general grant program, which will be matched by local funders. That means a total of $968,000 will be leveraged to fund sustainability projects in these selected cities.
“These projects are about fighting the next climate-related disaster," said Darryl Young, director of Sustainable Cities at The Summit Foundation. "Flood, fire, devastation. It's easy to feel overwhelmed, but it’s important — especially at the city level — to think proactively, to learn how to adapt, to prevent and respond in order to avoid becoming a cautionary tale.”
The program is supported by five investor foundations: The JPB Foundation, The Kendeda Fund, The New York Community Trust, The Summit Foundation, and Surdna Foundation. This grant cycle also includes $127,500 awarded to three green stormwater infrastructure projects, designed to advance water-related sustainability goals, made possible by the support of the Pisces Foundation, the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, and the Turner Foundation.
“These types of projects can help cities accomplish so much,” said Nancy Stoner, Water Program director and a senior fellow at the Pisces Foundation. “They not only improve water quality and water supply, but also beautify neighborhoods, create jobs, and help communities become healthier and more climate resilient.”
To date, Partners for Places has awarded $5.4 million across North America in this successful matching grant program, leading to nearly $11 million in philanthropic investments. Partners for Places will open a new round of funding for the general grant program in December.
The latest Partners for Places grant recipients and their matching funders are:
- Bend, Ore($50,000): To engage diverse voices to create a community climate action plan with innovative strategies that balance equity, efficiency and meaningful climate benefits. (Matching funder: Oregon Community Foundation Advised Funds)
- Cary, N.C.($25,000): To support equitable access to farmland for minority and women farmers and access to food for low-income residents through SNAP EBT, and a double bucks program. (Matching funder: Triangle Community Foundation)
- Cincinnati, Ohio($115,000): To enhance sustainability of Cincinnati’s regional food system through strategic, collaborative activities to prevent, recover, and recycle food waste and educate the public on the issue. (Matching funders: The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, Carol Ann & Ralph V. Haile, Jr./U.S. Bank Foundation, Interact for Health)
- Lancaster, Pa.($30,000): To support an equity-focused, community-wide planning effort resulting in a comprehensive climate action and resilience plan for the City of Lancaster and an initial implementation project. (Matching funders: Lancaster County Community Foundation, The Steinman Foundation)
- Los Angeles, Calif.($35,000): To tackle park-scarcity in LA’s densest and lowest-income regions by opening vibrant school playgrounds to the public through its Community School Parks program and empowering low-income residents through enhanced community engagement. (Matching funder: First 5 LA and The Goldhirsh Foundation)
- New Orleans, La.($45,000): To engage the community in making equity a priority in implementation of the City of New Orleans’ Climate Action Strategy and to help the city meet the strategy’s climate mitigation goals equitably. (Matching funder: Greater New Orleans Foundation)
- Philadelphia, Pa.($25,000): A data-driven approach to identify Philadelphia populations disproportionately exposed to environmental stressors, and reduce disparities through community-centered decision-making. (Matching funder: Knight Foundation)
- Salt Lake City, Utah($31,500): To empower Salt Lake City’s low-income and communities of color to engage in efforts to mitigate climate change impacts, improve community resiliency, and ensure social equity. This will be achieved through engagement in the Utah Climate Action Network, coupled with a community-driven energy efficiency campaign. (Matching funders: The George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, The Community Foundation of Utah, Richard K. and Shirley S. Hemingway Foundation, Telemachus Foundation)
This round of Partners for Places matching grants also recognizes three green stormwater infrastructure projects:
- Grand Rapids, Mich.($51,250): To prepare and implement a plan to fund and install green infrastructure and water conservation practices in low income-neighborhoods. (Matching funder: Wege Foundation)
- Las Cruces, N.M.($25,000): To build community resilience and cohesion in a low- to moderate income urban neighborhood as part of a project to design and construct a green infrastructure corridor and engage in community-building activities, combating extreme heat and drought. (Matching funder: Santa Fe Community Foundation)
- St. Louis, Mo.($51,250): Will plant trees to manage stormwater, enhance tree canopy, reduce heat island impact, and strengthen community relations by holding community tree-planting events with off-duty police officers and providing summer youth jobs for tree stewardship. (Matching funders: St. Louis Community Foundation, W.A. Kerr Foundation, Commerce Bancshares Foundation)
About Partners for Places Partners for Places
A joint project of the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities and the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, Partners for Places is a successful matching grant program that improves U.S. and Canadian communities by building partnerships between local government sustainability leaders and place-based foundations. National funders invest in local projects developed through these partnerships to promote a healthy environment, a strong economy and well-being for all residents. Through these investments, Partners for Places fosters long-term relationships that make our communities more prosperous, livable and vibrant.
For additional information and media inquiries, contact: Tere Figueras Negrete, Communications Director at the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, tere@www.fundersnetwork.org
Funders interested in becoming a part of Partners for Places should contact Director of Programs Ann Wallace.
Interested in Green Infrastructure? Join our Stormwater Funders' webinars!
Over the last several months, members of the Stormwater Funders’ Group have had a series of conversations about the multiple benefits of green infrastructure, such as public health and community investment, in addition to their largely known water quality benefits.
In recent months, funders have expressed interest in better studies to quantify multiple benefits, communicating the benefits more clearly for skeptics and decision makers, particularly local governments and smaller utilities, and integrating multiple benefits outcomes into green infrastructure projects.
And we are listening!
During this webinar, we hope funders will learn about how green infrastructure practitioners are thinking about multiple benefits, how various multiple benefit valuation tools and about the latest research on multiple benefits by the universities participating in the Urban Water Innovation Network. There will also be time for funder-only discussion following the presentations to explore funder interests and opportunities to work together.
Our speakers include Paula Conolly of Green Infrastructure Leadership Exchange, Heather Cooley of Pacific Institute, Neil Grigg, Ph.D of Colorado State University and the Urban Water Innovation Network and Nancy Stoner of Pisces Foundation as our moderator.
This funder-only webinar will be on Tuesday, November 7 at 1:00 p.m. ET/ 10:00 a.m. PT. Registration for this event ends on Friday, November 3.
To register, click here.
Wait! Want more Stormwater Funders’ Group learning opportunities?
Stormwater Funders’ Group is also organizing this month’s TFN Learning Network Call! This month’s call, Green Streets: Re-envisioning Water and Transportation Infrastructure, which will focus on the benefits of integrating water and transportation infrastructure.
This funder-only webinar will be on Wednesday, November 8t at 2:00 – 2:00 p.m. ET/ 11:00 a.m. PT. Registration for this even will end on Friday, November 3.
To register, click here.
Additional resources:
- ICYMI: In a recent editorial for the Detroit Free Press, John M. Erb, president and chairman of the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, shares the many benefits of green stormwater infrastructure, noting that Detroit is well situated to take the lead on implementing sustainable innovation: "With land abutting our lakes and rivers and more than 600,000 creative and resilient residents, Detroit has an unprecedented opportunity to become a leader in demonstrating the role green stormwater infrastructure can play in creating a healthier more prosperous city." Read the full piece here.
- Check out this video from Urban Water Innovation Network (UWIN), a consortium of academic institutions and key partners across the U.S.
TFN Launches CEO Candidate Search
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In speaking out against federal cuts, Legacy Foundation provides a sample guide for advocacy action
This summer, we featured a Fair Share blog post highlighting how the Legacy Foundation is leaning into advocacy — and how the foundation’s leadership helped organize stakeholders in the greater Northwest Indiana region to speak out against proposed federal budget cuts at HUD and EPA that would have severe negative impacts on the region’s low- and moderate-income population and environmental protections.
Legacy Foundation President Carolyn Saxton shared this update on the process with TFN:
“We finally got our meeting with the Congressional leaders together last Friday…not an easy process and we were not able to secure participation by Sen. Young. But we had Rep. Visclosky and Sen. Donnelly in attendance.
I am attaching some of the items from that meeting, including the agenda. Ahead of the meeting we provided our Congressmen with the participants who are signatories on the impact statement. The impact statement is attached. At the meeting we distributed the materials that informed our impact statement; those are also attached. We discussed next steps and at this point the newspapers are holding off on any coverage about these budget concerns primarily because they believe they will be dead in the water when they arrive from the President. I am not so sure but we are ready if that is not the case. Our Congressmen in attendance voiced their support for continued funding and commented that these meetings and personal correspondence are very important."
Carolyn also shared examples of an impact statement and other documents Legacy compiled to share with elected officials, which may be of interest to other funders considering similar approaches:
Impact Statement and Support Documents
Letter Opposing Changes to the Johnson Amendment
Carolyn writes:
“Taken together, the documents mentioned above offer a sample guide to advocacy action on any number of policy issues.”
For more information you can contact Carolyn directly at csaxton@legacyfdn.org.
Fair Share is an occasional column devoted to sharing innovative projects and promising practices from the OIC network. If you have ideas for a topic, or a story to share, contact Alicia at alicia@www.fundersnetwork.org.
Alicia Kitsuse
Program Director for Older Industrial Cities
alicia@www.fundersnetwork.org, (305) 667-6350
California wildfires: Forgotten victims, environmental hazards, and how funders can help
The deadly wildfires that have engulfed much of northern California, killing dozens of people and injuring hundreds more, represent the one of the worst firestorms in the history of the state.
Our thoughts and prayers are with our funders, friends and family in California, as well as those impacted by the devastating fires that began earlier this month. (We are happy to report that our TFN team members based in California, including those involved in our Smart Growth California initiative, are all safe.)
Here are a list of resources, stories and other useful information in the wake of the wildfires, which according to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP), "burned through 8.5 million acres, well above the 6 million acre annual average for the past year."
At least 40 people have died and hundreds of injuries have been reported, and those numbers are expected to rise. Thousands of people are under mandatory evacuation orders. The LA Times shared touching story on the lives lost to the wildfires.
CDP has compiled a growing list of donors, funds and other resources for those looking to participate in relief and recover efforts. (CDP is a partner in TFN's Philanthropic Preparedness, Resiliency and Emergency Partnership, or PPREP for short.)
Inside Philanthropy notes that funders are stepping up to address an often overlooked community that has been affected by the wildires: undocumented immigrants.
"A group of local immigrant service advocates launched the UndocuFund for Fire Relief in Sonoma County to provide direct assistance to this particular subset of victims. Direct service support comes in the form of practical things like temporary housing, home repairs, essential household items, rebuilding equipment, medical expenses, funeral expenses, and even necessary education materials. Basic needs, such as rent and groceries, are also provided for undocumented immigrants through this fund. The fund kicked off with a $50,000 challenge grant from the California Wellness Foundation, and 100 percent of the donations go to victim support. The Sebastopol, California-based Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR) serves as the fund’s fiscal agent, covering administrative costs with the other partners." Read the full story here.
While the total devastation of the wildfires is still to be determined, environmental advocates and public health experts have already begun to raise concern about the long-term impacts. A story this week from the New York Times details a list of potential dangers: "Treated wood in a house’s frame, for instance, put there to prevent bacteria growth, can contain copper, chromium and arsenic. Consumer electronics contain metals like lead, mercury and cadmium. Older homes might have asbestos shingles. Even galvanized nails are a concern because when they melt they release zinc. All are potentially harmful."
“In modern times this has got be an unprecedented event, and a major hazard for the public and for property owners,” said Dr. Alan Lockwood, a retired neurologist who has written widely about public health, told the Times. He said an apt comparison might be the environmental cleanup after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in New York, as debris and dust swirled through Lower Manhattan.
Is your foundation working to address the needs of those impacted by recent natural disasters? Please send updates or additional information and resources to TFN Communications Director.