Special Grant Initiatives

GRANT SPECIAL INITIATIVES

Thinking Outside The Philanthropic Box

Each year, the Foundation fundraises both locally and nationally to create more opportunities for nonprofits to receive funding. Separate from Donor-Advised grants and the Competitive Grant Program, these grants have specific focus areas and result in higher-dollar and higher-impact grants.

2017 Recipients CNM

Mayor’s Prize for Entrepreneurship

In 2015, the Mayor’s Prize for Entrepreneurship Powered by the Albuquerque Community Foundation launched as a partnership between the Albuquerque Community Foundation, the E.W. Kauffman Foundation and the City of Albuquerque. We identified the growth potential in Albuquerque’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, particularly through the diversity of entrepreneurs receiving services through nonprofits which represented the immigrant community, tech-transfer sector, women entrepreneurs and low-income entrepreneurs. To date, the Mayor’s Prize has granted $600,000 and has contributed to the creation of over 100 businesses and 550 jobs.

INGENUITY DOWNTOWN ALBUQUERQUE MAINSTREET

THREE SISTERS KITCHEN KESHET WESST

•CNM Ingenuity

Continued support for the IGNITE Community Accelerator and FUSE Makerspace initiatives. Both programs connect small-scale production methodology and practice with intellectual property assistance and distribution support, enabling entrepreneurs who manufacture products at FUSE to also learn to run a business and distribute those products for sale. ($65,000)

•Three Sisters Kitchen

For the Food Business Entrepreneurial Training Program, which provides aspiring, low-income entrepreneurs with the facilities, equipment, supplies and training they need to succeed in building their business. ($50,000)

•Keshet

To support the Keshet Makers Space Experience, a project housed within the Ideas and Innovation Community Program – a business incubator and resource center for arts entrepreneurs. ($10,000)

•WESST

For La Escalera, a program providing an accelerated pathway for immigrant entrepreneurs to: 1. formalize their business; 2. improve business skills in financial management, marketing and business compliance; 3. gain access to or improve use of banking services; and 4. join a network of support to start and grow their business. ($75,000)

A Próspero! recipient Working Classroom

In May, My Brother’s Keeper ABQ, in partnership with Innovate + Educate hosted a job ready hire fair to place 500 young men of color in quality jobs in our city. Over 600 individuals attended and 300 were hired. This identified a clear gap in employment and educational opportunities. As a result, the Foundation engaged in a partnership with the national My Brother’s Keeper Alliance and the City of Albuquerque to launch the Próspero! Award, a $100,000 grant program that provides educational advancement and employment opportunities for young men of color. Focus areas included: college readiness, GED, ESL, soft skills development, interviewing skills, citizenship, financial literacy, mentorship, internships and apprenticeships.

Through the Próspero! Award, we expect to see both an increase of employable men and the downstream effects of this employability: stronger family units, decreased incarceration, early childhood stability, reduction in poverty and a more stable New Mexico workforce. Grantees on following page.

• Cultivating Coders

To support rigorous, in-demand computer science skills training to young adults (16-24 years) of color. This pilot is an extended version of Cultivating Coders’ coding camp tailored to entrepreneurship. ($20,000)

• Three Sisters Kitchen

To support Cooking Up a Strong Economy, a collaboration between Three Sisters Kitchen and the Street Food Institute, which trains men of color in the food industry, with a focus on developing viable value-added food product concepts and building local food businesses. ($20,000)

• Fathers Building Futures

To help previously incarcerated men obtain job skills and employment in auto-detailing, power-washing and woodworking.

($20,000)

• New Day Youth and Family Services

To support New Day’s Pathways to Employment program, which helps homeless and disconnected youth gain skills and find employment. ($20,000)

• Working Classroom To support the I CREATE Fellowship: Supporting Young Men of Color in Creative Careers, which will train, support, employ and connect a cohort of 16 young men to careers in the creative economy. ($20,000)

Educate2Elevate

In 2017, the New Mexico Funders Collaborative was formed as a statewide network committed to pooling time, energy and resources. With the shared belief that we are stronger together and can work in partnership to affect long-term systemic change, the group created the Educate2Elevate (E2E) grant program to support middle school education initiatives. Thirteen funders contributed $5,000 each to award one high-impact, $65,000 grant.

The Collaborative selected its inaugural E2E recipient, Horizons Albuquerque. Through this grant, Horizons will create a complete middle school extended learning program to strengthen STEM project-based learning for middle school students, develop relevant family workshops and a handbook on educational transitions.

We are proud to stand among the thirteen participating funders in the Collaborative: Air Force Research Laboratory, Bank of Albuquerque, Intel, McCune Charitable Foundation, New Mexico Gas Company, Nusenda Credit Union Foundation, PNM Resources Foundation, Sandia National Laboratories, Southwest Capital Bank, United Way of Central New Mexico Hispano Philanthropic Society, Verdes Foundation and Wells Fargo.

One of the great privileges of working in the nonprofit community is seeing how organic cross-sector partnerships evolve from a spark of inspiration or a visionary idea for the future. We strive to not only play an important role in these partnerships, but to also invest grant dollars to support the long-term work and sustainability of these partnerships.

For the fifth anniversary of the Great Grant Giveaway, we highlighted and raised funds for large-scale partnerships poised to have lasting effects on Albuquerque’s economy and nonprofit community. Each of the featured partnerships was built on several nonprofits working together for a common cause.

• City Alive

City Alive approaches economic development using the power of collective impact. This group of public and private stakeholders including the Foundation, Wells Fargo, Nusenda Credit Union, CNM, UNM, McCune Charitable Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and others, is working to strengthen our economy and provide jobs, economic mobility and empowerment. City Alive’s goal is to create 10,000 living wage jobs by 2025 through entrepreneurship and innovation. ($38,562)

• Downtown Arts & Cultural District

The District is a revitalization initiative of Downtown Mainstreet in collaboration with numerous arts businesses and local government. Their work supports efforts to develop the area as a culturally vibrant hub for an array of creatives, including visual, performing and literary artists; creative industries including film and digital media and culinary arts and craft beverage entrepreneurs. ($30,125)

• Healthy Neighborhoods Albuquerque

HNA is comprised of seven anchor institutions focusing on hiring and buying locally. The anchor institutions are: Albuquerque Community Foundation, Albuquerque Public Schools, City of Albuquerque, Central New Mexico Community College, First Choice Community Healthcare, Presbyeterian Healthcare Services and University of New Mexico Health Services Center. The goal is to address social determinants of health – economic stability, food, education, neighborhood and physical environment and health care systems. ($37,994)

GREAT GRANT

GREAT GRANT

Southwest Creations Collaborative

SCC is a women-driven social enterprise that provides contract manufacturing for sewn soft goods and hand-crafted products, striving to alleviate poverty and build economic and educational opportunity across generations, by providing dignified, living-wage employment to women from low-income communities. A significant donor-advised grant supported SCC’s Employability and Education Equity Program, which covers the cost of classes, leadership development workshops and success planning for paid time employees. This two-generational program helps women earn their GEDs, increase their ESL-levels and create education plans so their children can attend college.

New Mexico School for the Blind and Visually Impaired

Upon Dr. Gerald Rubin’s passing in 1991, the Foundation was entrusted to administer the Eye Associates Gerald and Alice Rubin Memorial Foundation Fund. Since 2005, the fund has granted over $500,000 to organizations supporting eye care, eye education and research, and medical, physiological and mental disorders. In 2017, the fund advisors allocated a grant to support the New Mexico School for the Blind’s technology lending library. The library provides blind or visually impaired students (ages 5 to 22) access to technology that might not otherwise be available to them. Because there are many types of blindness or visual impairment, having access to various forms of technology – assistive tablets and computers – allows the student to choose what works best for them. This enhances both their learning capabilities and skills, in addition to their future employability.

GRANT GREAT