$600,000 For Economic Development, Young Children
December 17, 2008, Oakland, CA -- In response to continuing financial turmoil and increased community need, the East Bay Community Foundation and its donors have made more than $9.1 million in grants to worthy causes since the beginning of the current crisis in mid-September, including almost $600,000 to programs in Alameda and Contra Costa counties related to the Foundation’s new strategy of advancing economic opportunity for adults and families and ensuring young children are successful in the education system.
The $9.1 million in grants made to a wide variety of causes by those who hold charitable funds at the Foundation symbolize the continuing generosity of local donors in the teeth of economic adversity and increased community need, according to Nicole Taylor, the Foundation's President & Chief Executive Officer.
"Now, more than at any time in recent memory, East Bay residents are struggling to make ends meet," she added. "The Foundation’s own grants specifically targeted at providing economic opportunity and ensuring success of young children in the education system that leads to economic opportunity are vitally important priorities." In the next seven months, she said, the Foundation expects to grant another $345,000 toward economic opportunity and the education that ultimately leads to it.
The almost $600,000 in grants fund more than 30 programs in four geographic areas of special need targeted by the Foundation: Oakland; Richmond; the eastern Contra Costa County cities of Antioch, Pittsburg, Bay Point and Brentwood; and the southern Alameda County cities of Fremont, Newark, and Union City. (To view descriptions of each grant, click here.)
"We’re especially pleased," said Taylor, "that a number of these grants were made by the Foundation’s donors as well as grants made from the Foundation’s own endowment, indicating that we are already attracting partners to our new strategy announced in June of advancing economic opportunity and the education that leads directly to it."
Many of the grants awarded focus on programs that:
- Help people get living-wage employment through training for high-demand jobs.
- Help gain work for those re-entering communities after incarceration, especially those with limited skills and work histories and those facing barriers to employment;
- Help kids become life-long readers; and
- Help parents become their child’s most important teacher and advocate;
"It’s important to note that our own grantmaking and the grantmaking of our donors is only one of a number of ways in which we are advancing economic opportunity and the education that leads directly to it," said Taylor. "We are also seeking funding from large private foundations and are in discussions with business and government leaders for specific initiatives in which leadership and investments can be pooled and leveraged on behalf of these two, related causes that can and will transform lives in the East Bay."
