Posted on July 14, 2012

Community Foundation Update (7/14/12)

California

The Silicon Valley Community Foundation has announced $455,000 in grants to eight organizations working to provide counseling and legal services to homeowners and renters facing foreclosure. Recipients include the Law Foundation of Silicon Valley, Bay Area Legal, and Legal Aid of San Mateo County. Although foreclosure activity throughout the Bay Area has declined in recent months, experts expect demand for counseling and legal services to remain high as property owners try to navigate new federal and state foreclosure relief programs. With numerous new programs, experts also fear an increase in new foreclosure rescue scams.

The Fayette Fund, a local fund of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, has announced more than $29,000 in grants to seven local nonprofits working to make a measurable difference in Fayette County. The recipients are Exceptional OPS, FACTOR, Fayette Care Clinic, Fayette County Council on Domestic Violence (d.b.a. Promise Place), Fayette Youth Protection Homes, the Real Life Center, and Square Foot Ministry.

With support from the Efroymson Family and Glick funds, which it administers, the Central Indiana Community Foundation has announced the opening of Indy Reads Books, an independent bookstore that will engage in activities to support adult literacy in the community.

The Maine Women's Giving Tree, a donor-advised fund of the Maine Community Foundation, has announced grants of $5,000 to Elmhurst, Inc., to expand a therapeutic art program for developmentally challenged adults; Family Focus, to create scholarships for young children of families that lost their state childcare subsidies; and Trust for the Future, in support of an ongoing teaching and learning program for local schools.

The Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation has established an emergency fund to respond to immediate needs of other nonprofits in the wake of floods that struck the area in late June, the Duluth News Tribune reports. The fund has received $115,000 — $75,000 from the Community Foundation, $30,000 from the St. Paul Foundation, and $10,000 from the F.R. Bigelow Foundation. Most grants it awards will be in the $1,000 to $5,000 range, and grants of less than $5,000 will be decided within a week. If grant recipients subsequently receive Federal Emergency Management Agency money, they will return their grant monies to the fund.

The Community Foundation of East Mississippi in Meridian has launched an effort to raise funds from area donors, the Meridian Star reports. Established in 1987, the foundation manages sixty funds holding assets totaling more than $4.6 million.

The University of Wisconsin in Madison has announced a grant of $30,000 from the Madison Community Foundation to help the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation create six learning modules intended to connect youth and their families to science at the university's Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery.