Friday Rewind

The Friday Rewind offers a snapshot of PhilanthroNews —  that means news stories, articles, events of note, or information updates — from around our network and throughout the broad world of philanthropy. Whether you take a quick skim of the material or a deep dive through each item we hope to help inform your work and inspire your thinking.

1. The Redlich Horwitz Foundation (RHF) released the first video of a series, NY Leaders Are Putting Families First, which highlights why key leaders in the state are increasing kinship care and rightsizing congregate care. This video is showcased on FamilyFirstNY.org, a clearinghouse of information and strategy to assist local districts as they prepare for the implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act. This video also complements RHF’s latest publication, “How Three New York Counties Are Right-Sizing Congregate Care and Prioritizing Family-Based Care.
2. How well do foundation CEOs believe they understand what is and isn’t working in their foundation’s programmatic efforts? How are they developing this understanding, and what information are they choosing to share? To answer these questions, the Center for Effective Philanthropy analyzed survey responses from 119 CEOs of private and community foundations giving at least $5 million annually regarding what they know about what is and isn’t working in their foundations’ efforts to achieve their programmatic goals. The results and analysis are compiled in their just-released report, Understanding & Sharing What Works: The State of Foundation Practice
3. NY Funders Alliance member BlueCross BlueShield of WNY recently awarded $2.7 million in grant funding to nine health-based projects across Western New York on Wednesday in what the company is billing as “Blue Fund” awards. Read about the projects in this article from The Buffalo News!
4. The Russell Family Foundation (TRFF) practices impact investing as a long game built on experiential learning, resilient risk-taking and the primacy of relationships. Contrary to the playbook of traditional investing, where the dominant values are expressed as competition, proprietary and individual benefit, TRFF has chosen to flip the rules in its impact investing to aim toward collaboration (not competition), transparency (not opaqueness), and the common good (not private gain). Read about their journey into making incremental changes with their investing habits in this article by Inside Philanthropy
5. A new census resource for municipalities was issued this week by the National League of Cities. “Cities Count: Preparing for the 2020 Census” provides access to resources for local leaders with objective information about and resources to prepare for the upcoming 2020 Census

Friday Rewind is published each Friday by NY Funders Alliance staff. To submit a story for the Friday Rewind, please email programs@nyfunders.org.