Valley Community Foundation president James Cohen has an interesting analogy for the beginnings of the foundation, which was formed six and half years ago as a subset of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
It’s like an egg in an incubator, Cohen says.
And with a new, seven-year agreement about to be signed between the two groups which gives even more decision-making power to the Valley Community Foundation — Cohen says that egg is about to hatch.
“This really is a significant event in Valley philanthropy,” Cohen said last week. “It guarantees the existence of a local, locally based philanthropy, which will give away millions of dollars to community organizations.”
The Valley Community Foundation will host a reception at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the Gilder Boathouse in Derby to celebrate the new agreement.
The Basics
The Valley Community Foundation was formed as a support organization of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
The thought — if local board members are gathering donations and dishing them out, more money will come in and more community groups will benefit.
“They (the New Haven board) felt they weren’t getting out of this area what they could,” Cohen said. “And they could see there were local organizations that people were very generous toward.”
So almost seven years ago, the New Haven board signed an agreement with a new Valley board that created the local foundation.
The Valley Community Foundation started creating its own local funds. The New Haven foundation continued to give Valley organizations money as well.
The Gates Fund
The big Valley-centered fund — The Gates Fund — is where most of the money distributed by the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven came from.
The Gates family was a wealthy Derby family. They created a trust in the family name in 1938 through the New Haven Foundation.
The trust was created to benefit people living in the Derby area.
In the past several years, most of the money in the funds was distributed to Valley organizations, but the decision for where the money went was made by they New Haven board.
Under the new agreement, decision making power for the Gates Fund, and all other Valley grants, will be in the hands of the Valley Community Foundation.
“The two foundations are going to have one joint Valley grant-making program,” said William Ginsberg, the president of the Community Foundation For Greater New Haven.
“The lead role is with the Valley Community Foundation,” Ginsberg said. “The reasoning is, these are Valley people. They know the issues, they know the organizations. They know the Valley. The know the Valley better than anybody.”
What Does It Mean?
For local organizations looking for grants from the two foundations, the change means a simplified application process.
There is only one application to fill out, with a box to check if the organization is in or serves the Valley.
For the Valley Community Foundation, it means a recognition of success getting support in the Valley, Ginsberg and Cohen said.
In the seven years, the Valley Community Foundation has added about 80 Valley-centered funds to the roster.
“I think when this was started seven years ago, it was an experiment in whether the Valley would support a community foundation,” Ginsberg said. “And whether this organization would be able to build an institution that was the go-to institution for building an endowment in the Valley.”
“Our view is that it has,” Ginsberg said. “And this is truly the institution that represents the Valley people.”
