Seven Reasons Why Your Foundation Should Pay Attention to Fracking

By Ramtin Arablouei, Program Manager, Health and Environmental Funders Network

The word “fracking” has been all over the media over the last few years. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is the technical shorthand for the process that extracts natural gas and oil from deep inside the earth. Fracking* has facilitated a boom in natural gas drilling, but it also comes with many risks and disadvantages. These risks have caused concern among many foundations that now are funding efforts to regulate or ban fracking. Why should you pay attention?
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Preparing Vulnerable Populations for Crisis: What We’ve Learned and Funding for the Future

By Sister Paulette LoMonaco, Executive Director, Good Shepherd Services

This blog post is adapted from Sister LoMonaco’s remarks during one of the member engagement sessions at Philanthropy New York’s 34th Annual Meeting.

I would like to focus on two perspectives: youth services and youth in communities of high need like Red Hook, Brooklyn, and the special needs of those providing child welfare, mental health and developmentally delayed programs for youth.

In communities like Red Hook, where 75 percent of the population lives in the Red Hook Houses and 47 percent live below the poverty level, there is already an enormous amount of vulnerability. Red Hook suffers from a lack of public transportation, with only two buses running in and out of a community that is surrounded on three sides by water and on the fourth by the Gowanus Expressway. It has very diminished services that most New Yorkers take for granted: limited access to doctors and health services, little access to fresh food, only one bank, no movie theater or dry cleaners and a library with limited hours.

Young people in Red Hook (as in other impoverished neighborhoods) are underemployed and often undereducated. They tend to live in public housing, which was unprepared for Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath despite all of their efforts; many of the people that were told to leave had no place to go and so remained on site. The programs that serve them in these neighborhoods are also without resources — every year, programs like the Beacons and afterschool and child care, designed to be the infrastructure that keep vulnerable youth and families safe and engaged, face budget cuts leading to staff layoffs and program uncertainty. Their staff are often part-time, and thus not eligible for medical benefits. One can rightfully say that youth services providers live in a state of perpetual crisis, a perpetual disaster aftermath, as they attempt to address the multi-faceted needs of those they serve with limited resources and very little in the way of extra funds for a rainy day, not to mention a giant superstorm.
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Six Months Later

Volunteers with the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance help with post-storm clean-up efforts in late 2012. Photo source: Rockaway Waterfront Alliance

Volunteers with the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance help with post-storm clean-up efforts in late 2012. Photo source: Rockaway Waterfront Alliance

By Lauren Linville, Communications Associate, Health and Environmental Funders Network

It seems much longer than six months ago that Hurricane Sandy turned into Superstorm Sandy and devastated parts of New York and New Jersey. In the aftermath of the storm, philanthropy responded with millions of dollars for relief, recovery and rebuilding.

Not surprisingly, funders based in New Jersey and New York have invested heavily in these efforts. The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in partnership with the Community Foundation of New Jersey quickly established a New Jersey Recovery Fund to address intermediate and long-range impacts from Sandy (see Margaret Waldock of the Dodge Foundation’s guest post). Within two weeks of the storm, The New York Community Trust made $500,000 in grants to disaster relief and has made $965,000 in grants since then for ongoing recovery and resiliency planning.

As philanthropy looks back at the last six months, and forward to what’s next for impacted communities, NGOs and experts have been sharing their lessons learned from Sandy. Here are some highlights of challenges, opportunities and advice offered by groups in the field on recent calls hosted by the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers.
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Funders Give and Get Advice From NYC Teens

By Jessica Pliska, Founder and Executive Director, The Opportunity Network and April Hawkins, Director of MetLife Foundation’s Civic Affairs Program

On most days, the job of philanthropy executives involves reviewing proposals, meeting nonprofit leaders and granting funds to deserving organizations, but on one Thursday night in March, The Opportunity Network turned the tables and invited a group of philanthropists to talk about their own careers and their professional journeys with New York City students. Joining us on the panel were Abby Frost from Gap Inc., Adam Gasiewicz from Hispanics in Philanthropy, Meredith Fontecchio from Deloitte, and Sonni Holland from the Charles Hayden Foundation. We brought diverse perspectives to the table, and spent two hours helping students understand the field of philanthropy, career opportunities and the kinds of skills necessary for success. The students are part of The Opportunity Network (OppNet), an organization that creates access for high-achieving, underserved high school and college students to career opportunities, professional networks and competitive colleges.
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Share Your Thoughts: PNY’s 34th Annual Meeting!

Thank you to everyone who attended our 34th Annual Meeting or watched the proceedings via our livestream broadcast! And special thanks again to the Ford Foundation for their generosity as our hosts.

We asked you to share your thoughts on community resiliency in advance of our meeting, and now we’d love to get your feedback on the day’s proceedings.
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4 Questions about Disaster Philanthropy for Bob Ottenhoff

Bob Ottenhoff is the inaugural President and CEO of the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP), which provides tools, expert analysis and strategic guidance to maximize the effectiveness of donations to disaster relief and recovery. Recently, The Chronicle of Philanthropy recognized the launch of CDP as one of the “Five Nonprofit High Points of 2012.” Arabella Advisors’ Molly Lyons spoke to Ottenhoff about what donors really need to know to respond to and plan for a disaster.

What’s the biggest challenge for donors who are interested in disaster philanthropy?
When we see scenes of a disaster on television, we immediately want to do something and do it as soon as possible. However, as a donor, taking just a moment to reflect and be a little more intentional about your giving will help assure your funds have maximum impact and effectiveness. We try to remind donors about the full arc of disaster relief: people need help not only in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, but they also need help with long-term recovery and long-term rebuilding. We also need to be better at planning and preparation, so that we can more quickly recover from disasters.
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Foundations as First Responders?

By Marilyn Gelber, President, Brooklyn Community Foundation

When I was in city government (a quite remarkable time in New York City extending from the 1970s to the late 1990s) and some disaster befell us — blackouts, hurricanes, massive water main breaks, civil disorders — you knew that you were expected to respond quickly and do whatever it took to help with the recovery.

I had already left city government and begun my work in philanthropy, starting the Independence Community Bank Foundation, when the stunning attack on the World Trade Center occurred on 9/11. Overwhelmed by shock and grief for my city, I felt I had no role in first response compared to my former colleagues in government who were immediately on the spot to help. I was running a foundation, not a city agency!

But that thought was quickly followed by another: I realized that what I now do is help people by raising money and providing support faster and more nimbly than government can often do. I began to think that an active and engaged foundation could also play a vital role by connecting resources to people and communities most affected by this type of unexpected event.
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