Connected to One Another

In the same Bank of America study, the #1 reason for giving among high net worth donors is a desire “to give back to the community.” The more local donors feel connected to one another and to their community, the more they will give back. This is why The Community Foundation was a leading supporter of local, nonprofit community journalism in 2009-2010, securing grants from national foundations and contributing our own resources to the New Haven Independent, Valley Independent Sentinel and CT Mirror.

Since 2006, when The Community Foundation became an early sponsor of the New Haven Independent, The Community Foundation committed to supporting new media to increase knowledge sharing and civic engagement. The New Haven Independent has become known as a credible source where you can find virtually any news pertaining to the City of New Haven and its 24 neighborhoods, from politics to employment to education to health are to the arts and entertainment and so much more. In 2009, The Community Foundation collaborated with its affiliate the Valley Community Foundation and the Online Journalism Project to win a $500,000 grant from the Knight Community Information Challenge program - a highly competitive, $24 million initiative to help community and place-based foundations find creative ways to use new media and technology to keep residents informed and engaged. That grant launched the Valley Independent Sentinel – a nonprofit, online-only news site dedicated to covering Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, Seymour and Shelton, Connecticut.

In 2010, a $300,000 Knight Challenge grant, with additional support from The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven’s Becky Fund and the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, helped launch the CT Mirror. This online news source offers professional reporting on Connecticut’s legislature, executive branch and courts, as well as insight and analysis, disclosing the whys and consequences of public policy decisions. It also provides citizens access to public, but not easily accessible, state government documents from voting records to school test scores, and serves as a portal to information available elsewhere online. And through a feature called CT Commons, people are given the opportunity to discuss and express opinions about legislative and government issues through reader feedback, online public hearings with policymakers, issues forums and conversations.

"Building a stronger community is all about helping people connect to one another and to the issues that affect us all,” says Will Ginsberg, The Community Foundation’s President & CEO. “In our time, that means helping people connect through the use of online media. We are committed to this as an important strategy for our community.”