The Women’s Philanthropy Society of the Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville is proud to announce its inaugural grant to the ELM Foundation for its Community Connections program to provide comprehensive case management support for homeless women and families in our community.
The Women’s Philanthropy Society – established for women by women – seeks to make a positive difference in the lives of women and families across a broad spectrum of issues that affect the Quality of Life in our community. The heart of the Women’s Philanthropy Society is the Women’s Endowment that will provide a “legacy of love” for women and families in our community forever.
The Women’s Philanthropy Society Advisory Committee has chosen homeless women and families as its focus issue for 2018 grantmaking. To that end, the Community Foundation convened a Community Conversation in April to discuss the challenges faced by homeless women and families in our community. Over 80 community leaders participated in this Community Conversation and identified over 50 agencies and organizations addressing this issue in our community. Thereafter, the Women’s Philanthropy Society solicited grant applications to address a strategic solution to the issues facing homeless women and families. The Community Foundation received twenty-one grant applications for projects totaling $850,922. Following a rigorous review process, the Grants Committee – comprised of community leaders – selected the ELM Foundation’s Community Connections program as this year’s grant recipient.
Community Connections is a collaborative case management network to move homeless women with children into housing quickly by streamlining the referral process and providing intensive case management to connect families with available services. This program will provide unlimited subscriptions for one year to CharityTracker, a shared online case management tool used in 1,334 communities across the U.S. ELM Foundation will organize a nonprofit network that will meet monthly to share resources, information, and professional development. In addition, the Community Connections program will offer up to twenty scholarships for the Leadership Social Services program to encourage further education, collaboration, and networking for participating agencies. The goal of the Community Connections program is to encourage collaboration and Information sharing across agencies to more quickly place families in housing and to provide services to support stability while reducing duplication of services. The collaborative network creates a plan for families to meet needs for housing while reducing barriers leading to episodes of homelessness.
“We believe that the Community Connections program will build bridges between homeless women and the agencies and services that will help them improve their lives and the lives of their children,” stated Leta DeMaioribus, Chair of the Women’s Philanthropy Society Advisory Committee.
“The ELM Foundation is excited to partner with the Women’s Philanthropy Society in this important work that can be a road map for how our community comes together to address its most significant problems,” said Ryan Lindow, Board President for the ELM Foundation. Stuart Obermann, CEO/President of the Community Foundation agreed, “Together we can do more than any one agency or individual can do separately. Together we can improve the quality of life in our community.”
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About Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville
The Community Foundation of Greater Huntsville serves as a catalyst for making our great community even better. We seek to improve the quality of life in our community through philanthropy. www.CommunityFoundationHSV.org
About the ELM Foundation
The ELM Foundation works to reverse the cycle of poverty by helping individuals and families set goals and create plans so that they can find the resources they need to support their families.
www.expectlittlemiracleshsv.org
