Increasing Local Giving

With Federal, State and local budgets being dramatically reduced and corporate giving declining locally as well, The Community Foundation is doing all it can to increase local giving. This is central to our role. We believe that the more our community knows about its challenges and opportunities, and the more local donors have confidence in local nonprofits, the more they will give locally.

		In 2009–2010, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven received $43 million in gifts and transfers, and donors established 87 new funds. This support includes the continued rapid growth of our affiliate the Valley Community Foundation, which was established in 2004 to promote local giving in the towns of Ansonia, Derby, Oxford, Seymour and Shelton.
		Through The Community Foundation’s giveGreater.org 2010 Challenge, donors made more than 5,100 gifts (totaling over $358,000) to 92 local nonprofits. Forty-six participating nonprofits split an additional $200,000 in grant prizes from The Community Foundation through the Challenge by getting at least 50 donors to give $50 or more.
		The Community Foundation works with various groups to grow and deepen the impact of their philanthropy. The Community Fund for Women & Girls celebrated its 15th anniversary and produced a new documentary, I’m A Philanthropist: How Women Are Changing America’s Charitable Landscape. The Progreso Latino Fund raised $40,000 through a special fundraising Gala that honored John Soto, a local Latino leader and Fund Advisory Committee member. The Urban Prosperity Fund was launched in 2010 to focus on growing African-American philanthropy.
		A Bank of America national study found accountants, attorneys and financial/wealth advisors to be among the leading sources of charitable advice. The Community Foundation works with advisors through its Board and its Ambassadors Committee to promote giving and to educate donors about the many ways they can give.
		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.
		In 2010, The Community Foundation distributed $6 million from funds designated to organizations by gift or bequest. A donor established a new $3 million fund designated for Long Wharf Theatre in 2009-2010. With that new fund, the internationally renowned theatre now has five designated funds at The Community Foundation with a combined value close to $10 million.