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Toledo Community Foundation’s Community Support Initiative
Sojourner’s Truth Staff
The Greater Toledo
Community Foundation has created a fund for an Equity &
Access Initiative in order to provide financial support to
Toledo area groups and organizations that are tackling the
issues of inequity and injustice.
The planning for the
Initiative began the day after the murder of George Floyd in
Minneapolis that has caused an uproar around the world, says
Keith Burwell, president of the Community Foundation. “We
understand the anger and frustration that yet another
tragedy like the death of George Floyd creates for all of
us, in particular for our community members who feel unsafe
every day.”
The challenge for the
Foundation staff was to examine past funding practices they
had employed for community grants and to consider how
improvements could be made in such practices.
“A lot of grants have
already been going to the minority community and grassroots
organization,” says Burwell. He cites the ideas recently
proposed by Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation,
who believes that “the days of making one big grant won’t
cut it anymore,” says Burwell.
Therefore, the Foundation
has established an independent committee comprised of a
combination of current board members and community leaders
in order to develop a long-time strategy to address social
determinants of health and nonprofit capacity.
“There are a lot of
organizations at the grassroots level that need funding,”
notes Burwell. However, many such organizations lack the
capacity to operate effectively. Such organizations and
agencies would often be more effective if they collaborated
with other groups, said Burwell, and part of the agenda for
the independent committee will be to promote such
collaboration when possible.
The Foundation has set
aside an initial fund of $200,000 which Burwell stresses is
the starting point in a mission to “emphasize the issue of
diversity.”
The Foundation will be
seeking proposals from nonprofit organizations that put
forth plans to address inequity and lack of access as soon
as the complete independent committee members are appointed
and assembled. The concept is to encourage such
organizations to offer proposals in as simple a way as
possible – a one-page summary, says Burwell – that will
enable the committee to gauge the possibilities of bringing
groups together.
“Our hope is that by
coming together, we can offer solutions to our community
challenges in creative and inclusive ways,” says Burwell.
“We will continue to hold our selves accountable to help and
connect our community and we will continue to work with
other to build a livable, equitable and just community –
where everyone feels safe.”
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