A Word From Our Leadership

Over the last two years, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven stepped forward with major new commitments. Seizing upon a unique opportunity to partner with other leading institutions to advance educational achievement, The Community Foundation is now the home of New Haven Promise. Because we believe the community needs to capture more of its giving locally, The Community Foundation is now the home of giveGreater.org. These important advances define new ways of serving our community, and build upon our 83 years as the community’s charitable endowment.

During the period 2009-2010 the nation experienced the deepest recession in a generation and an uneven recovery that set the stage for unprecedented budget cuts by government at all levels. Against that backdrop, The Community Foundation distributed $35 million in grants to the community and received over $43 million in gifts and transfers, both more than in any previous two-year period in our history. The endowment made a robust recovery as well, increasing from a recession-induced low of $225 million at the beginning of 2009 to an all-time high of $312 million at year-end 2010.

Understanding the increased demands on local agencies, more and more of The Community Foundation’s grantmaking now supports the general operations of the nonprofits that are the backbone of social services, education, healthcare and arts and culture in our community. This is and will remain a central role for The Community Foundation.

School Change moved to the center of the local public agenda in 2009-2010 as New Haven became a leader in the national school reform movement. The Community Foundation stepped forward in partnership with the City of New Haven and Yale University to create New Haven Promise, a key element of New Haven’s comprehensive reform initiative. New Haven Promise is an ambitious effort to build a college-going culture in New Haven’s families, neighborhoods and schools. It will provide scholarship support of up to full tuition for all qualifying New Haven Public School graduates. It is a powerful statement of confidence in our future as a community.

giveGreater.org is an innovative new web-based resource that provides local donors with access to what they need to know to give locally with greater confidence. In 2010, The Community Foundation challenged our community to give more locally through giveGreater.org, and the community responded generously. As a strategy to engage the talents and commitment of an emerging generation of community leaders, giveGreater.org will be essential to our efforts to continue to grow local community philanthropy for the future.

In these ways, New Haven Promise and giveGreater.org are The Community Foundation’s response to the future of local community philanthropy as we see it. At the same time, The Community Foundation is, as always, looking to the past, guided by the trust that three generations of donors committed to this community have placed in us since 1928. Our fundamental commitment to them endures.

We are grateful beyond telling for the privilege of working with so many who share our deep commitment to this community, and hopeful too that others will join us in this work in the times to come.

Rolan Joni Young			William W. Ginsberg
Chair of the Board of Directors			President & CEO