Initiatives

Held on Tuesday, January 17, 2023—National Day of Racial Healing

Tgether with our partners from Rochester Area Community Foundation, Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo and the Central New York Community Foundation, the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region invited the public to join us for a virtual conversation with Heather McGhee, NY Times Bestselling Author of The Sum of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. McGhee shared proof of the benefits we gain when people come together across race to accomplish what we simply cannot do on our own.

The Capital Region Indicators is a joint initiative of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission (CDRPC), Capital Region Chamber, Capital District Transportation Committee, and the Community Foundation. This initiative seeks to help a wide variety of public and private organizations better understand the communities of New York’s Capital Region. Using the best available information, the website serves as a common source of data and interactive visualizations that will inform community members about topics critical to the economic and social wellbeing of our region.

The site was custom designed by the Albany Visualization and Informatics Lab at UAlbany and is maintained by CDRPC. https://www.capitalregionindicators.org/

Visit the website at www.capitalregionindicators.org

The COVID-19 Response Recovery Survey is an initiative of the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region. As a co-leader of the COVID-19 Response Fund, the Foundation and funding partners distributed nearly $1.2M in grants to nonprofit organizations serving individuals and families disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus. What’s next? The Community Foundation conducted a survey to better understand the financial and capacity building needs of local nonprofits as they continue to support and serve our region. Click on the image below to view a summary of the results.

The Upstate Alliance for the Creative Economy (ACE) works with cross-sector, geographically diverse individuals, private and public organizations, nonprofits, and community leaders to develop and implement programs that benefit the people, places, and creativity
of the greater Capital Region.

• ACE originated from a Community Foundation and Center for Economic Growth funded report called Captivate: Leveraging Regional Assets for a Vibrant Community.
• As a result of the report and ongoing research, community leaders have learned that the creative industries are the fourth largest employment sector contributing $1.4B in earnings in the Capital Region.
• The Community Foundation continues to provide leadership and grant support to ACE. In 2019, ACE announced its merger with the Center for Economic Growth to support and sustain regional economic development initiatives.

Visit their website here: https://www.upstatecreative.org/.

Changing the Conversation is a community partnership among Catholic Charities, the Community Foundation, Unity House and the NYS Writers Institute. Our goal is to educate and raise awareness around relevant community issues which inspire changemakers to take action.

On November 14, 2019, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author and Princeton University Sociology Professor Matthew Desmond joined us for informative lecture and discussion of his book, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. By attending this event, participants are now able to initiate an evocative,  inclusive educational experience that transforms perceptions around poverty and the impact housing has on this equation.

Uncharitable is an important movie which invites us to think in radically new and more effective ways about donors, foundations, and the mission driven sector. Uncharitable delivers an emotional journey that moves, persuades, and inspires its audience to change the way we think about giving.

Inspired by Dan Pallotta, whose record-breaking TED Talk on the subject has inspired leading philanthropists and changemakers, this feature-length documentary directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal exposes the dark side of philanthropy and introduces a radical new way of giving. In a powerful call to action, Uncharitable demands that charities be freed from the traditional sackcloth-and-ashes constraints, so that they can truly change the world.

The Community Foundation co-hosted a screening of this film in January 2024.

The Capital Region partnership, officially formed in October 2017, is one of more than 30 cities nationwide working with the national Green & Healthy Homes Initiative. The partnership brings together the cities of Albany, Schenectady, and Troy, various nonprofit service providers and GHHI to deliver housing intervention programs for Capital Region residents living in energy-inefficient, unhealthy, and unsafe homes.

The regional GHHI partnership will focus on:

• Better health outcomes for children, seniors and families.
• More efficient use of public investment through improved interagency and municipal coordination.
• Improved energy-efficiency for low- and middle- income families.
• Higher quality green jobs.
• Reduced barriers to school attendance and work among families with young children.
• Support for neighborhood stabilization through more effective and sustainable home investments

The Capital Region GHHI partnership is generously supported by the Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region, the Schenectady Foundation, KeyBank, MVP Health Care, and National Grid

The United For ALICE Project is a nationwide effort to provide a more accurate picture of financial insecurity at the state, county, and municipal level. It provides a framework, language, and tools to measure and understand the struggles of a population called ALICE — an acronym for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Click the image below to view the United Way for the Greater Capital Region’s ALICE report analysis.