At the Tower Foundation, we are excited to advance our participatory grantmaking agenda on several fronts in 2024. Before previewing these in this post, I offer a definition of participatory philanthropy from the Fund for Shared Insight.. Participatory Philanthropy: A philanthropy practice that explicitly includes the participation of community members with lived expertise in a … Continued
For two days this November, we had the privilege of joining seven nonprofit leaders at an equity focused retreat in Beverly, Massachusetts. This retreat was the culmination of years of partnership, via a learning network, with leaders from grant partner organizations who are advancing equity within their organizations and communities. Like any good retreat, this … Continued
The 2023 Community Experts Team just wrapped up its grant review, after coming together again with a mix of seasoned and brand-new members to determine the distribution of $215,000 to programs supporting youth. This year, the team was composed of 16 team members with lived experience, with origins from counties in Massachusetts and New York … Continued
On November 20, 2023, the Tower Foundation hosted an online conversation about the intersection of incarceration and substance use. Panelists from several of our grant partners were invited to discuss the ways in which their work with recently incarcerated youth is affected by substance use disorders within this population. Rates of substance use disorder are … Continued
Participatory philanthropy, according to the new Participatory Philanthropy Toolkit from the Fund for Shared Insight is defined as: A philanthropy practice that explicitly includes the participation of community members with lived expertise in a relevant issue area (non-funders) and shifts power from traditional foundation decision makers to participants during any part of the philanthropy process … Continued
At the Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation, strengthening organizational capacity is a central tenant in our grantmaking. We recognize that our communities need strong organizations, leaders, and teams in order to deliver the best services to the populations we are interested in supporting. We also know that organizations are dealing with significant challenges in the … Continued
In the fall of 2022, the Tower Foundation’s Community Experts Fund awarded a total of $200,000 to agencies that support programming for young people with intellectual disabilities and/or behavioral health challenges. The Fund was entirely designed and administered by a group of young adults that represented our funding regions and that had lived expertise across … Continued
When the Institute for Nonprofit Practice (INP) received our first grant from the Tower Foundation in 2009, little did we know that this investment would blossom into a transformative partnership spanning many years and multiple communities. Last month, while attending the graduation ceremony for INP’s first-ever Western New York cohort of Core Program graduates through … Continued
We are pleased to share an update from Think Bigger Do Good Policy Paper Series, a collaborative project of the Thomas Scattergood Foundation, Peg’s Foundation, the Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation, and the Patrick P. Lee Foundation. Each paper in this series identifies a specific challenge and recommends clear strategies to advance the delivery of mental … Continued
Reflecting on how things have gone is something we like to do about this time of year as the days grow shorter and nights grow longer. As 2022 winds down, and we reflect on our equity journey at the Foundation, it is hard not to notice all of the grief that we are carrying and … Continued
