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.
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Our guest blogger for this post is Maureen McElhinny with Beth Israel Lahey Health Behavioral Services Substance use for adolescents can escalate from a dangerous discovery to a heartbreaking dependency, putting youth at long-term risk and damaging families and whole communities. Team Fourteen is a group of clinicians who serve adolescents and their families with … Continued
Back in 2014, the Foundation’s Trustees and staff went through a strategic planning process. Nothing new, right? What made this strategic plan (which we later decided to call a strategic direction) different is that we built the entire thing around a process called Results-Based Accountability (RBA). Without getting too wonky, RBA takes a page out … Continued
This May I attended a GEO conference in Seattle, Washington with a singular focus on the role of learning in philanthropy. Things kicked off with a call to honor the land where we were gathered and acknowledge that its indigenous people (the Suquamish, Duwamish, and many others) were harshly treated and marginalized by Seattle’s white … Continued
Authored by: Tracy Sawicki, Executive Director at the Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation and Jane Feinberg, Founder and Principal, Full Frame Communications In 2013, a group of philanthropists gathered together in Beverly, MA for an education roundtable. One of the guest speakers was Jeff Riley, currently the Education Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, who … Continued
The Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation is pleased to announce its recent grant awards totaling nearly $1.3 million to 15 organizations for projects benefitting Erie and Niagara Counties in Western New York, as well as Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Essex County in Eastern Massachusetts. “It’s a great privilege to support these organizations as they work … Continued
What applicants thought about applying to the Tower Foundation in 2018 I can’t say it enough: we love feedback. Don’t get me wrong – some of it is not easy to hear. But we truly appreciate feedback from applicants and grant partners in all its challenging, validating, and sometimes surprising forms. It helps us … Continued
On a chilly November afternoon, I had the pleasure of attending Arc Tank 2.0 at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum on UMASS’s Boston campus. This is the second year of the event, hosted by Northeast Arc (NeArc)¹, and loosely based on the tv show Shark Tank. Organizations that serve people with intellectual disabilities or … Continued
The Peter & Elizabeth Tower Foundation is pleased to announce that it recently awarded nearly $1.4 million in grants to 14 organizations in Erie and Niagara Counties in Western New York, as well as Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Essex County in Eastern Massachusetts. “We are delighted to support this recent group of grant partners. This … Continued
In the most recent blog, Megan MacDavey explained how the Small Grants Program will now fit into the Foundation’s “Strengthening Partner Capacity” portfolio. This was done in a continuing effort to streamline our grantmaking. Please refer to Megan’s blog for more information on this change. Today, I really want to focus on the impact that we … Continued
We love getting to know the communities we work in, learning about the organizations located there, and talking to the people who see what’s happening there every day. Holding office hours at local coffee shops in your neighborhood is one of our favorite ways of connecting. Unfortunately, it’s not always feasible to carve out that … Continued
