The Governor and R.I. State Council on the Arts announced 138 grants totaling $828,328 were awarded throughout Rhode Island to arts and culture organizations, individual artists and schools. Some of the grants also support collaborations with healthcare, education, economic development and Veteran’s affairs.
The grants received support from appropriations by the General Assembly and were federally funded through the National Endowment for the Arts.
Download the full listing of grantees here.
Five local arts and culturally specific organizations of color will share $150,000 to increase their capacity to bring their cultural traditions to the public.
The funding is through the Rhode Island Expansion Arts Program. A partnership between the Rhode Island Foundation, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA) and the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities (RI Humanities), the program targets organizations whose programs and missions center on the cultural practices and traditions of Rhode Island’s diverse communities.
This year’s recipients are the Andean Cultural Center of Rhode Island, the Cultural Society of East Bay, the PVD World Music Institute, the RAÍCES Rhode Island Folk and Cultural Association and the Rhode Island Black Film Festival. In addition to the funding, the program provides opportunities for group learning, direct technical assistance and intercultural collaboration and tools and resources that can enhance the work of each organization.
In addition to the funding, consultants will work with the groups to help them build knowledge and expertise in the areas of financial management, marketing and audience development, leadership development and strategic collaborations.
Members of the new cohort are:
The Expansion Arts Program is offered every three years. Previous recipients include the Korean American Association of Rhode Island, Rhode Island Cape Verdean Heritage, the Columbian American Cultural Society, the India Association of Rhode Island, Sankofa Community Connection and the Laotian Community Center of Rhode Island. The Foundation expects to begin taking applications for the next round of funding in 2025.
Providence Business News recently featured an interview with Roshni Darnal, Director of Community Investments at United Way of Rhode Island, who shared about shifts in United Way’s grantmaking: Read article
With a focus on achieving the goals of its LIVE UNITED 2025 plan to build racial equity and opportunities for all Rhode Islanders, United Way of Rhode Island announced an investment of $10 million in the work of community organizations over three years. These latest grants, awarded from United Way’s Community Impact Fund, benefitted 45 local nonprofits, following what were intentional changes to the organization’s grantmaking program.
In 2021, United Way made the commitment to invest $100 million over five years to build racial equity and opportunities for all Rhode Islanders. With this round of funding, the organization’s contributions through programs, grants, and philanthropy now total more than $71.25 million toward that goal in just three years. Additionally in 2023, United Way will offer more opportunities for funding with a focus on summer learning, opportunity grants, equity initiatives, and family stabilization, among others.
United Way’s overhaul of its grant program was designed to better serve organizations whose work is rooted in actively advancing justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Among the changes are three years of funding rather than two, awarding only unrestricted grants, instituting nontraditional reporting, and addressing the funding inequities faced by nonprofits led by Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) leaders. On average, these organizations have less than half of the staff and budget as non-BIPOC-led nonprofits.
Aligning with United Way’s strategic priorities, the focus areas of the awarded grants include out-of-school time and experiential learning opportunities for students in underserved communities, housing, job training and economic empowerment, and community-based advocacy to advance social justice and racial equity.
Among the grantee organizations, two — Inspiring Minds and Mt. Hope Learning Center — were funded at the recommendation of United Way’s Women United group.
Organizations were invited to apply for up to $75,000 in annual funding for the three-year period of 2023 to 2026. Proposals went through a multiphase review process, in which a committee of 29 took a holistic approach to reviewing each application. Proposals were scored on alignment with United Way’s mission; organizational readiness to invest; population served and geographical reach; justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion plans; and proposed activities. There were 238 grant applications received, totaling $17.8 million in funding requests.
The leaders of 10 local organizations have been selected as fellows to participate in the latest Nonprofit Innovation Lab. This marks the third cohort of the joint effort of United Way of Rhode Island and Social Enterprise Greenhouse (SEG) that launched in 2020. The unique program challenges organizations to think outside the box to develop new solutions to pressing social issues, and offers an opportunity to secure seed funding to bring those ideas to life.
With the Nonprofit Innovation Lab, United Way and SEG help to accelerate organizations’ ability to hone and implement unique ideas with the potential to create positive social impact. The effort pairs each fellow with a custom team of coaches and provides the knowledge, resources, and networking opportunities that help turn transformative ideas into reality. The months-long program culminates with “Sparked!”, a “Shark Tank”-like presentation broadcast on Rhode Island PBS where fellows compete for $90,000 in seed funding and other in-kind services and supports. The fellows selected and their organizations are:
The vision shared by local nonprofits and led by United Way of Rhode Island to create a statewide Nonprofit Resource Center has received a major boost in the form of a $1 million commitment from the Papitto Opportunity Connection (POC). The funding will help United Way accelerate the development of the business model of what will be a central, multi-faceted entity aimed at strengthening the state’s nonprofit sector as a whole, and will be spread across four years.
United Way announced plans to establish a nonprofit resource hub in late January and placed a call for applicants to serve on the Design Team that will help guide its creation. The initiative will serve the state’s entire nonprofit ecosystem and work to enhance its capacity while prioritizing the needs and perspectives of BIPOC-led and other small and mid-size nonprofits. Programming may include training, advocacy, visibility, and research to advance organizational resiliency and infrastructure.
United Way also received funding from Rhode Island Commerce Corporation as part of their Network Matching Grant program, which was designed to build support systems for Rhode Island’s small business community.
The Point32Health Foundation announced today that 10 community organizations across the region will receive grants totaling more than $1.1 million. Funding will support work to advance policies and practices that address disparities and create more inclusive communities.Building on the legacy of service and giving established by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation and Tufts Health Plan Foundation, the Point32Health Foundation will work with communities to support, advocate and advance healthier lives for everyone. These grants advance systems-level change to remove barriers responsible for inequities in New England communities.The Rhode Island beneficiary was Progreso Latino in Central Falls, which received a two-year grant for $150,000.
From Philanthropy News Digest 1/14/2022 —
“As of the end of 2021, the U.S. nonprofit workforce is estimated to be down by 459,000 jobs — or 3.7 percent — from pre-pandemic levels, an analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies finds.
The sector added an estimated 9,246 jobs in December, regaining just 2 percent of the 468,116 jobs still lost to the COVID-19 pandemic as of November and 0.6 percent of the estimated 1.64 million nonprofit jobs lost during the first three months of the pandemic. The fields that saw the strongest recovery last month were religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, and similar organizations (8 percent of jobs still lost as of November) and social assistance (6.9 percent), followed by education (2.1 percent) and arts, entertainment, and recreation (0.2 percent); health care saw additional job losses of 0.7 percent.
According to the center’s final report tracking the impact of the pandemic on the nonprofit workforce, the remaining lost jobs include 12.5 percent of pre-pandemic workers in nonprofit arts and entertainment organizations; 5.6 percent of those in education; 4 percent of those in religious, grantmaking, and civic associations; and 3.4 percent of those in social service organizations.
Based on average rates of job recovery from January through December 2021, the report estimates that it will take another eleven months for the nonprofit sector’s jobs to return to pre-pandemic levels — 8.8 months for social assistance; 7.1 months for religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, and similar organizations; 6.6 months for arts, entertainment, and recreation; and 5.9 percent for education. Nonprofit healthcare jobs saw so little growth in 2021 that no reliable estimate could be projected.
‘The twin challenges of the unpredictable nature of the on-going pandemic and significant difficulties in hiring now coming to light [make it] difficult to predict what the future holds for the nation’s third largest employer as we enter into 2022,” the report’s authors note. “With nearly a half million of the sector’s pre-pandemic workers still missing from the workforce, nonprofits have a steep hill to climb as they continue their critical work to assist and support the recovery of their communities.'”
The Champlin Foundation announced today a $1.6+ million, four-pronged philanthropic approach to support Rhode Island’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The commitment includes $600,000 that will allow four non-profit hospitals to acquire testing and diagnostic machines to dramatically increase the number of COVID-19 tests that can be taken and completed each day.
“No one has seen anything the likes of this public health crisis and the economic repercussions. While it’s created a good deal of uncertainty, it has also brought the community together even as we keep our social distance. The Champlin Foundation is taking unprecedented steps to support Rhode Island’s public health response and core members of our state’s nonprofit community,” said Champlin Foundation Executive Director Nina Stack. “The Foundation is making a $1.6 million commitment of new money and offering flexibility to ease restrictions on certain existing grants. Our grants are helping the state’s nonprofit hospital systems acquire the necessary testing equipment to increase COVID testing capacity as well as providing front-line and earned revenue-based nonprofits with capital liquidity during trying and uncertain economic times. Widespread events like this require a full community response and we’re proud to stand up with Rhode Islanders in every part of the state to do all we can to assist in this health and economic crisis.”
With Champlin’s support, Lifespan, Care New England and South County Health will be able to substantially increase the number of COVID-19 tests conducted each day, with the deployment of five new testing machines. The support also allows Landmark Health in Woonsocket and Westerly Hospital to expand their laboratory equipment to more effectively determine non COVID-19 respiratory illnesses. With faster testing and results it allows more efficient use of available resources.
“These are unpredictable times for everyone and especially for those on the frontline preparing for the inevitable surge of infected patients,” said Timothy J. Babineau, MD, President and CEO of Lifespan. “We’re all in this together, and the incredible generosity of The Champlin Foundation to equip Rhode Island Hospital with COVID-19 testing machines underscores their long history of support of our state’s vital health care system. Because of the foundation, we will soon have the ability to test three times as many patients in a single day. This gift will literally save lives in the days and weeks to come.”
“These machines are of vital importance in our fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to the grant that The Champlin Foundation has stepped up to provide, Care New England will soon be able to more quickly turn around in-house testing, and for more patients right when it’s needed,” said James Fanale, MD, President and CEO of Care New England.
The $600,000 gift to the state’s nonprofit hospitals is one part of a four-pronged, $1.6 million response that Champlin’s Distribution Committee approved this week. The other components include:
The Foundation’s first ever grant was $50 to Rhode Island Hospital in 1933 to purchase eyeglasses for Rhode Islanders in need. Since then, The Champlin Foundation has awarded nearly $600 million to fund capital projects for Rhode Island non-profit organizations. These investments have fostered better medical care, improved education, expanded access to social services, conservation of open spaces, preservation of historic buildings, enrichment of the arts, advancement of animal welfare and more. Over the years, the Foundation has proactively responded to catastrophic events and crisis situations, including Rhode Island’s credit union collapse, the Station Nightclub Fire, and the fallout from the Great Recession.