The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven Expands Reach and Deepens Impact in 2023
The Foundation makes $32.7 million in grants and distributions and receives $41.9 million in new gifts and assets.
New Haven, Conn. — The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven made grants and distributions totaling $32.7 million in 2023 to hundreds of organizations serving residents in the region. The funding supported help for affordable housing, food, job skills, healthcare, the arts, entrepreneurship, youth enrichment and other vital community services. The grantmaking also advanced The Foundation’s strategic commitment to creating greater opportunity and greater equity throughout the region.
“The Foundation’s work to create opportunity and advance equity throughout our region is only possible because of the extraordinary generosity of our community,” said President and CEO Will Ginsberg. “The breadth of our grantmaking reflects a new level engagement and partnership with donors, with private institutional funders and with federal, state and local governments. We are seeing a consensus around the imperative to grow inclusively with equity and are excited by the work at all levels of the Greater New Haven community to achieve this goal."
The Foundation received $41.9 million* in gifts and new assets in 2023, and its endowment grew to more than $750 million. Individuals, families and organizations opened, or directed by bequest, 51 new funds at The Foundation, a record number. Of these new funds, 20 were created by Latine individuals and families as part of the Progreso Latino Fund’s 20th Anniversary, an effort that tripled the number of funds at The Foundation opened by Latine founders.
“We are excited by both the number and diversity of donors who created funds this year. The variety of funding sources reflects so many philanthropic connections in our community, some of which go back many years and others that are new and the result of our strategic focus on broadening our reach in the community,” said Senior Vice President for Development and Donor Services Dotty Weston-Murphy.
The $32.7 million in grants were made possible by the many different funds established by donors and organizations over the course of The Foundation’s 95-year history.
Donor funds that name specific nonprofits for annual distributions granted $6.3 million, supporting a range of organizations including those that support children and youth, the arts, access to health and basic needs, economic opportunity and other services in the community.
Grants that donors recommended from their donor advised funds totaled $5.4 million. Many of these grants helped fill funding gaps for nonprofits that applied to The Foundation for competitive grants.
The Foundation granted $9 million from funds that donors established with a preference for interest areas such as the arts, health or basic needs, and from unrestricted funds that give The Foundation discretion over their use. The Foundation used these funds to provide competitive responsive grants to more than 200 nonprofits. The discretionary funding also supported educational programs, workshops and technical assistance to nonprofits. Strategic grants to advance opportunity and equity, including funding for the scholarship and career readiness program New Haven Promise, were also made from discretionary funds.
Grants from The Community Foundation Mission Investments Company (TCFMIC) were made to underserved entrepreneurs and small business owners as part of The Foundation’s strategy to address the racial and gender wealth gap in our region. In 2023, TCFMIC made 227 direct support grants totaling is $1,343,000 to small businesses that applied through its New Haven Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (NHE3) initiative, 152 of which were Black-owned businesses. The awards were funded by a $7.2 million grant to The Foundation from Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development for the purpose of advancing equity in entrepreneurship.
The Foundation distributed $8.1 million to nonprofit organizations that have entrusted their endowments to The Foundation for investment purposes. Managing endowed organization funds is a service that The Foundation provides as a registered investment advisor. The Foundation received $14.8 million in new organization endowment assets in 2023.
The 2023 grants and distributions from The Foundation also included:
Grant and program funding from the final year of Stepping Forward, The Foundation’s three-year response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to advance racial equity. The Foundation granted $1,540,684 from Stepping Forward to local nonprofit organizations and to programs supporting the development of diverse new leaders in the community.
In June, The Foundation’s Community Fund for Women and Girls granted $190,000 to help women start businesses and advance in their careers as part of its Pathways to Economic Security for Women initiative. The grants support programs offering job-skills training, entrepreneur coaching and other services. Over three rounds of funding since 2022, the grant program has supported 2,989 local women.
In August, the Progreso Latino fund made $57,500 in grants to support mental health services for Gateway Community College students, at Cornell Scott–Hill Health Center, and at the Spanish Community of Wallingford. As part of its 20th Anniversary, the Progreso Latino Fund has committed to making $100,000 in grants the two–year period 2023–2024.
In December, The Foundation’s Basic Needs Fund made $305,000 in grants to nonprofits providing food, shelter, hygiene supplies, clothing and other material support for basic daily needs to Greater New Haven residents. Since 2021, the fund, which was established by local donors who advise its grantmaking, has provided $1,059,800 in grants to local basic needs organizations.
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. 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 information about The Foundation visit www.cfgnh.org or follow @cfgnh on facebook and twitter.
*Updated April 2024: The amount of new gifts and assets to The Foundation in 2023 has been updated since this story was originally posted.
