Learn what’s happening at the Foundation and in the communities where we work. Hear from staff and partners about their accomplishments and lessons learned along the way.
Click Here for our most recent e-Newsletter, as well as archived copies of previous editions.
About three-quarters of parents in Eastern Massachusetts communities disagreed that it would be best for persons with intellectual disabilities to live and work in special communities (76%, up from 46% just two years ago). While the majority of Western New York parents report that youth with intellectual disabilities do not receive equal education opportunities, about … Continued
The 2024 Community Experts Team (CET) just came to a close, after holding its first in-person retreat in Buffalo, NY. The Community Experts Team is a group of young people from geographic areas that Tower funds: Erie and Niagara Counties in Western New York, and Barnstable, Dukes, Essex, and Nantucket Counties in Eastern Massachusetts who … Continued
The Tower Foundation has been on a five year-long journey to bring people with lived expertise in the Foundation’s areas of interest into our work. This includes young people in and around their twenties with intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, mental health challenges and substance use disorders. Below is an image of the Public Engagement Spectrum, … Continued
The ongoing mental health crisis is one of the most pressing challenges facing our society today. With over 50 percent of Americans seeking mental health care and 80 percent of students in the U.S. experiencing anxiety, the need for innovative, scalable solutions has never been more urgent. At The Brookline Center for Community Mental Health, … Continued
The last couple of posts in this series (here and here) have provided a high-level overview of Results-Based Accountability (RBA), and population accountability in particular. As a refresher, RBA is an ends-to-means approach to creating and measuring change at the community (i.e., population) and program (i.e., organization or service) levels. It’s built around goals (result … Continued
After a couple-year hiatus, I’m back to continue the refresher series on Results-Based Accountability (RBA)! In the last installment, we began exploring RBA and its five key questions, starting with, “How are we doing?” Answering this question requires zooming out and looking at community-level information, or population indicators. These population indicators provide a satellite view … Continued
Buffalo, N.Y., May 20, 2024 – The Board of Trustees of The Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation has appointed three new members and includes Allen Paul Booker, Dr. Marie A. Cannon, and Dr. Jacqueline Hall. The new members will each serve an initial one year term with the private family foundation that serves Western New … Continued
Equity is a critical piece of our work at the Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation. For the last few years, we have worked to pay closer attention to the convergence of our focus areas (intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, mental health, and substance use disorders) with systemic issues of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, and more. In … Continued
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
