As part of its mission, the Boston Foundation works with donors to enhance the impact of their charitable giving.  The Foundation does this primarily through its Donor Advised Fund program.  A Donor Advised Fund is a flexible giving account that enables a donor to make a charitable contribution, and then make grant recommendations to support his or her favorite charitable programs.  There are several advantages to establishing a Donor Advised Fund: they are simple to establish and to use; with one contribution the donor can support multiple charities; and the donor receives the maximum charitable tax deduction allowed for any type of asset given. The Boston Foundation provides grant services, information and expertise to assist donors in maximizing the impact of their Donor Advised Funds.  

One of the Foundation’s goals is to build the long-term charitable capital of Greater Boston. Donor Advised Funds are a key component in this effort in that they often introduce individuals and families to the world of philanthropy.  The Foundation assists these donors to enhance the impact of their giving which can lead to more giving for Greater Boston organizations, and to more charitable capital available to address future needs.  

The Foundation gathers and evaluates feedback from its constituents, including donors, professional advisors and other prospects.  It conducts surveys to gain feedback on its services and holds events for donors and professional advisors where attendance is monitored and follow-up surveys collected to gauge the success of the particular event and to determine other topics that would be of interest.  The Foundation has a Professional Advisors Committee that meets quarterly and provides feedback and ideas of how the Foundation could better serve donors.  Retention of donors is also a way that TBF measures success.  

The Boston Foundation is committed to having a profound impact on important areas of community life in Greater Boston. To achieve this overarching goal, it invests in the critical work of nonprofit organizations throughout Greater Boston via $16 million per year in discretionary grant making, and works with partners in all sectors to create special initiatives that address additional unmet needs. Currently, the Foundation’s grant making focuses on: Education, Health and Wellness, Jobs and Economic Development, Neighborhoods and Housing and Arts and Culture, as well as two crosscutting areas: one on nonprofit effectiveness and another on grassroots programming. It also has a special “Open Door Grant-Making Program,” to support new ideas in keeping with its history of being “There at the Beginning” with critical early support for innovation plans and organizations.

One of the Foundation’s signature special initiatives is Success Boston: in concert with the City of Boston, the Boston Public Schools and scores of area colleges and universities, this special initiative focuses on increasing the number of Boston Public Schools graduates who complete college. Since the initiative was launched in 2008, it has increased college completion rates of BPS graduates from 35.5% to 51.3%. The Foundation also received $6 million in Social Innovation Funding from the White House to expand the initiative to serve 1,000 students a year.

The Boston Foundation aims to build and sustain a vital, prosperous city and region where justice and opportunity are extended to all.  The work is guided by two strategic goals that reflect our deep commitment to strengthening communities.  Examples of goals and desired end states include:

• Increased college graduation rates for low-income and minority students to a 70% college completion rate for Boston Public Schools graduates by 2017 (Success Boston)

Greater Boston communities are vibrant, safe and affordable 

• Decreased gang-involved shootings by 60% in 5 focus communities historically and persistently plagued by gang violence.  (StreetSafe Boston)
  

The Civic Leadership Fund (CLF) at the Boston Foundation provides the crucial resources the Foundation needs to tackle some of our region’s biggest challenges through a wide range of civic leadership activities.  It allows the Foundation to produce and disseminate in-depth reports from area colleges and think tanks, highlight trends and issues that are having a profound impact on all aspects of our community, promote informed public discourse around these issues through a series of forums that attracts thousands every year and convene major task forces of community leaders in the private and public sectors to identify new and effective solutions and influence public policy.  In short, the CLF fuels the Foundation’s role as a vibrant place where information, knowledge, resources and influence come together for the greater good of our region.

The Boston Foundation has held a number of major forums on topics of current concern to Greater Boston, including a moving live-broadcast “Town Hall” on “Race in Boston” with WCVB-TV in response to the tragedies in other cities involving the police and African Americans. The Foundation also held a major forum on a new arts study commissioned by the Foundation on how Boston and comparable cities support the arts shows that only New York City has higher per capita contributed revenue for the art than Boston, among major American cities.

The study, titled “How Boston and Other American Cities Support and Sustain the Arts: Funding for Cultural Nonprofits in Boston and 10 Other Metropolitan Cities,” also examined Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Philadelphia, Portland Oregon, San Francisco and Seattle. “How Boston” is a follow-up of sorts to a 2003 Boston Foundation report titled, “Funding for Cultural Organizations in Boston and Nine Other Metropolitan Areas.”

The study is informing the City of Boston’s “Boston Creates” initiative and other foundations supporting the arts, such as Barr Foundation. One of the most recent successes brought about with help from the CLF was groundbreaking community college reform. The Foundation-convened Coalition FOR Community Colleges, made up of business and community leaders.

All of the work of the Civic Leadership Fund is informed by research conducted by the Foundation’s Boston Indicators Project and numerous other university research centers and think tanks. Data that emerges from this research shapes the Foundation’s civic leadership agenda and tracks the success of the Foundation’s task forces and coalitions in affecting public policy and creating deep, long-lasting change.

The Race to the Top Coalition, convened by the Foundation to help pass education reform legislation and win $250 million in federal funding, published the first progress report on closing the achievement gap. The report revealed that the 2011 MCAS results show early promise in most of the 34 turnaround schools and confirm that expanding charter schools is achieving impressive results.

The Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund, informed by Boston Foundation reports, passed thanks to a coalition the Foundation co-convened. It has provided more than $82 million in grants to nearly 600 renovation and building projects in 118 cities and towns—leveraging more than $1.5 billion in additional support and providing work for tens of thousands of people.

A coalition the Foundation helped form played a major role in passing a pioneering municipal health care bill that has saved more than $247 million in 257 communities across the Commonwealth, restoring jobs and services. The Commonwealth Housing Task Force helped pass Smart Growth Housing legislation that has resulted in 12,350 zoned units in 32 smart-growth districts. And, sweeping probation and CORI reform was the result of a task force co-convened by the Foundation and the Crime and Justice Institute.

The Boston Foundation partners with donors to establish legacy funds for the betterment of Greater Boston. These funds together are known as the Permanent Fund for Boston, which currently has more than $300 million in assets. The Foundation seeks to build and strengthen the Permanent Fund for Boston, which provides the resources the Foundation needs to respond nimbly to Greater Boston’s most critical needs. This will allow the Foundation to deepen considerably its capacity to practice innovative philanthropy today and in the decades to come. Today, $16 million in grants from the Permanent Fund for Boston benefit all areas of community life, including Education, Health and Wellness, Jobs and Economic Development, Neighborhoods and Housing and Arts and Culture. Setting up a named fund within the Permanent Fund for Boston and including the Boston Foundation in your estate planning is quick and easy and does not require changing your will.  

To mark the Boston Foundation’s 100th Anniversary, in 2015, the Foundation reached out to our donors and others to establish named funds within the Permanent Fund for Boston and thereby strengthen this critical fund, which gives the Foundation the flexible resources needed to respond to the most urgent needs of the day. Many donors with Donor Advised Funds at the Boston Foundation and other generous people have made arrangements to add the Permanent Fund for Boston into their estate planning. In addition, during our Centennial, outright gifts of $1 million each surpassed its goal of $10 million and reached $15. Also during the Centennial, the Foundation raised $177 million in total toward its goal of $200 million.

Building the Permanent Fund for Boston by $200 million will strengthen the Boston Foundation’s capacity to make grants in all areas of community life in Greater Boston. In the past, grants from the Permanent Fund have helped to launch some of the most important nonprofit institutions in our community, including the New England Aquarium, Action for Boston Community Development, the Greater Boston Food Bank, WGBH-TV and numerous others. Grants also have contributed to the historic cleanup of the Boston Harbor, the development of Quincy Market and the Longwood Medical Area. In recent years, grants have supported the earliest days of City Year, Citizen Schools, Year Up and numerous other innovative nonprofits.

In 2016, the Boston Foundation released Thriving People, Vibrant Places: A Five-Year Progress Report, a detailed review of progress made during that five-year period and the challenges that remain. The report covers work in five impact areas: Education; Health & Wellness; Jobs & Economic Development; Neighborhoods & Housing; and Arts & Culture; as well as two crosscutting strategies, including programs that boost Nonprofit Effectiveness and support the Grassroots. It included statistics and frank descriptions of achievements and disappointments.

Within a month of releasing the report, the Foundation announced its new strategic direction and held a series of community-based sessions to answer questions from nonprofits. Called Vision 2020, the Foundation recommits to its five impact areas and two crosscutting strategies and announces its intention to work even more closely with donors to increase the impact of their philanthropy and the Foundation’s as a whole. Vision 2020 also introduces “Open Door Grants” that will support promising ideas and approaches from new or existing nonprofits for programs.

The Boston Foundation’s grant making and special initiatives are designed with goals that are used to measure the impact on the Greater Boston community. The Boston Foundation works with the Boston Indicators Project, a special initiative of the Foundation and one of the most sophisticated data projects in the United States, to inform and measure its success in education, health and wellness, jobs and economic development, neighborhoods and housing and arts and culture offerings and community safety. The Foundation’s staff set specific goals and measure the effectiveness of their grant making against those goals.

Past donors to the Boston Foundation’s Permanent Fund for Boston have transformed the lives of many people. Harriett Bartlett, a famous Boston-area social worker, left a bequest when she died in 1987, specifying that her fund be spent for “community building.” Today, a grant from her fund is helping an organization named the Family Independence Initiative organized a group of Guatemalan immigrants who live in East Boston, helping them to network and strengthen each other and the community through their work. A donor named Anna Frothingham, who left a bequest in 1939, is helping a program called Health Leads reach out to people in medical settings to help them take advantage of community resources to assist them in all parts of their lives. A man named Edward Glines, who was Mayor of Somerville from 1901 to 1904, left a bequest to the Fund in 1938 and now is helping Karen Furtado pursue her dream of attending college and going on to be a nurse.

The Philanthropic Initiative at the Boston Foundation is a leading provider of customized philanthropic advice and counsel to high net worth individuals, families, foundations and corporations nationally and globally. Its goal is to help clients invest in their values and passions for maximum impact by designing, implementing and evaluating customized philanthropic strategies and programs.

TPI’s Services

•Family philanthropy services

•Customized research on programs and issues

•Grants program design including:

-Requests for proposals

-Proposal review

-Site visits

-Grant recommendations

•Strategic planning & facilitation for families and individuals

•Services for corporate giving programs

Examples of TPI's Work

TPI worked with both the second and third generations of a Boston family to develop effective governance and grant making strategies, including supporting the G3 generation grant making

focused on education. TPI provided an assessment of a corporate philanthropy and community relations effort, facilitated an idea lab, and developed scenarios for sharpening or modifying the strategic framework of a New England based national corporate philanthropy program.

TPI Services for Foundations & Corporations

•Strategic planning for grant-making programs

•Consultation on foundation governance & management issues

•Grants program design & implementation

Consultation on international grant making

•Easy to establish Donor Advised Funds

Mr. Grogan joined the Boston Foundation from Harvard University, where he served as Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs and spearheaded unprecedented University commitments to the community. While at Harvard, Mr. Grogan also created a national organization, “CEOs for Cities,” a global learning community dedicated to making cities successful. From 1986 through 1998, he was President and CEO of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), the nation’s largest community development intermediary. During his term, LISC raised and invested more than $3 billion of private capital across America and contributed to a string of policy successes, including the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, the HOME program, the strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act and the creation of the New Markets Tax Credit.

Paul’s passion for cities began in Boston where he served Mayors Kevin H. White and Raymond L. Flynn. He headed Boston’s neighborhood revitalization efforts in the early 1980s, pioneering a series of public/private ventures, including the Boston Housing Partnership and the Boston Compact, which have been widely emulated by other cities. Paul graduated with honors in American History from Williams College, earned a Master’s degree in Administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and was awarded a Bicentennial Medal from Williams College for his leadership in inner-city revitalization efforts. Paul is a founder and director of The Community Development Trust, a director of New Profit Inc., and a trustee of Brandeis University. He previously served on the Boards of Williams College, FSG Social Impact Advisors, and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. He is the co-author, with Tony Proscio, of the book, Comeback Cities.

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