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Dress for Success Oregon Recognized by Bank of America Foundation

Dress for Success Oregon Recognized by Bank of America for Effectively Promoting Economic Independence for Women

Dress for Success selected as annual Builder winner in Portland to be awarded $200,000 in unrestricted grant funding to help fund its new Career Center

Portland, Ore. — The Bank of America Charitable Foundation has selected Dress for Success Oregon as its annual Neighborhood Builder winner in Portland, an honor that entails a $200,000 unrestricted grant as well as leadership development training to help nonprofit leaders gain valuable skills while applying funding where it is most needed.

Each year in the Portland area, Bank of America honors one local nonprofit with the Neighborhood Builder award — as part of its broader philanthropy commitment — and focuses the Builder nominees on high-performing organizations that have a significant impact in the community within the funding areas of jobs, hunger and housing. By design, the Neighborhood Builder program is a strategic investment that pairs leadership training with the grant, in order to maximize impact and reach.

“Nonprofit organizations provide much needed services in Oregon but too often they lack the opportunity to invest in their own long-term planning, growth and development,” said Roger Hinshaw, Bank of America’s president in Oregon and Southwest Washington. “By recognizing Dress for Success Oregon as a Neighborhood Builder this year, we know that they are poised to make an even greater impact in our community by helping more women get the resources they need to find a job and establish economic stability. And that’s something I’m happy we could invest in.”

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The Oregon Community Foundation Invests $32 million in Arts & Education in Oregon

Investment is From Fred W. Fields Estate Gift, Now Valued at More Than $156 Million

Portland, Ore. — May 13, 2013 — The Oregon Community Foundation is pleased to announce a $32 million five-year investment in key strategies to support education and the arts for all Oregonians. These investments are some of the first made from the Fred W. Fields estate, a gift OCF received in late 2011 and currently valued at more than $156 million.

The Fields gift was the largest single gift OCF has ever received and one of the largest single gifts made to any community foundation throughout the nation. As steward of the gift and to determine how best to use the new endowment, OCF embarked on more than a year of research and consideration of needs in the areas of arts and education in Oregon. During the past year, OCF held gatherings with arts groups and community members around the state, conducted a survey of more than 750 people representing nearly every county in Oregon and met with education policy leaders and partner organizations representing the full education continuum.

This initial investment will allow OCF to explore new strategies and make deeper commitments in areas that have already been working successfully. The $32 million five-year investment will go towards funding the following strategies and initiatives:

·      A $15.5 million signature education initiative will focus on four strategies to ensure that more children come to school ready to learn and continue on a path to academic success:

o   Parents are their children’s earliest foundation for success, so OCF is making a deeper investment in parenting education to ensure that more parenting education classes and other critical resources are available to all families.

o   The implementation of a prenatal through 3rd grade alignment pilot program serving at least eight communities to strengthen connections between early childhood services and the K-12 system.

o   Funding for community-based programs that offer high quality after-school, mentoring and parent engagement programs to increase student attendance and academic achievement.

o   Because post-secondary education remains unattainable for so many, an annual Fred W. Fields scholarship will be awarded to one student in every Oregon community college who is working toward a technical certificate or associate degree.

·      The $13 million arts and culture initiative is aimed at creating more vibrant and accessible arts communities of all sizes across Oregon. Programs will:
o   Increase access to arts education for schoolchildren through multi-year partnerships between arts organizations and schools;

o   Support the creation and dissemination of innovative works through multi-year grants to arts and culture organizations;

o   Support the state’s small arts and culture organizations through a program that will distribute grants to arts organizations in every region of the state.

·      During the next five years, up to $10 million in other funds from the Fields gift will increase support for responsive arts and education grants throughout Oregon.
OCF will roll out these new programs over the course of the next year. More information about the Fields gift and how it will support arts and education in Oregon can be found at www.oregoncf.org.

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The mission of The Oregon Community Foundation is to improve life in Oregon and promote effective philanthropy. OCF works with individuals, families, businesses and organizations to create charitable funds to support the community causes they care about. Through these funds OCF awarded more than $66 million in grants and scholarships in 2012.

Cambia Health Foundation’s Child Health Grant Cycle Opens

The Cambia Health Foundation is launching a new grants program aimed at improving the health and wellness of underserved children in Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

This new strategic priority area enhances the Foundation’s overall goal of building healthier communities and investing in innovative, collaborative programs that transform healthcare.

The child health grants program will focus on three strategic funding areas:
1. Supporting programs that effectively address oral health issues among underserved children, specifically those projects that improve care coordination, enhance quality and reduce costs.
2. Funding programs that address behavioral health issues affecting underserved children and specifically those interventions that treat children’s health issues holistically, improve care quality, reduce costs and break through traditional health care silos.
3. Supporting programs that address the childhood obesity epidemic, specifically those projects that treat children’s health issues holistically, reduce health inequities and build community partnerships that promote collaboration and system-wide change.

Additional guidelines, criteria and application procedures are available online at: http://www.cambiahealthfoundation.org/grants.html. Letters of Inquiry are due on May 9, 2013. For additional assistance, please contact Kathleen Pitcher Tobey, program officer, at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Nike Employee Grant Fund Cycle Opens

Applications are now open for the next round of the Nike Employee Grant Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation. Can you please help us get the word out to qualified non-profits and schools?

Nominations for the Winter 2013 funding cycle are due by June 1, 2013.

The Nike Employee Grant Fund of The Oregon Community Foundation seeks to benefit communities where Nike employees live, work, and play in the greater Portland area (Multnomah, Clackamas, Washington, Yamhill, and Columbia counties in Oregon and Clark County in southwest Washington).

The Fund, which was established in 2010 and is administered in a unique partnership with The Oregon Community Foundation, supports:

  • Projects that encourage physical activity in meaningful ways, especially those that create early positive experiences for children through physical education, sports and play.
  • Projects that address community challenges through innovative community-based solutions.


The full set of guidelines and the application are available online at www.oregoncf.org/nike.

PGE Foundation awards almost $450K in grants in first quarter 2013

$83,132 awarded to Community 101; $50,000 to LifeWorks NW

PORTLAND, Ore. — In the first quarter of 2013, the PGE Foundation — Portland General Electric’s corporate foundation — awarded 35 grants totaling $441,632 to nonprofits across the state to fund programs in areas of education, safety and health, and arts education.

The foundation gave top priority to education and academic support, awarding $270,132 to programs focused on on-time, high school completion, college and career readiness, post-secondary scholarships, academic support for low-income youth and their families, and arts education.

The largest education grant was awarded to Community 101 for $83,132 , the joint PGE Foundation and Oregon Community Foundation student leadership program. Community 101, now in 62 Oregon schools, provides classroom-based, hands-on lessons in civic engagement. The PGE Foundation’s grant to Community 101 includes PGE employee donations matched by the company at 50 percent.

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