Hamilton Community Foundation
Hamilton Community Foundation (HCF) is a Community Foundation that pools donations and Financial endowments into a coordinated investment and grant-making facility dedicated primarily to the social improvement of Hamilton, Ontario. Its current President and CEO is Terry Cooke, the former Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth regional chair and Hamilton Spectator columnist.
HCF is the oldest community foundation in Ontario. It was founded in 1954 and modeled after Winnipeg Community Foundation, the first Community foundation in Canada. The concept of a permanent endowment that issued grants was unfamiliar to Hamiltonians at first, and HCF secured just $100 in gifts in its first year. However, its gifts and endowments grew steadily and it reached $10 million in assets by the Foundations's 40th anniversary in 1995.
HCF is governed by a board of directors who are selected by a nominating committee that consists of the Mayor, Chief of Police, President of the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, President of the Hamilton Law Association, and Chair of the United Way of Burlington and Greater Hamilton.
Community leadership
HCF currently has over $137 million in assets and has disbursed over $75 million in grants since its formation in 1954. The grants are distributed across all charitable sectors in the community: arts, education, environment, health and human services and recreation.
The foundation has long been known for its community leadership in addressing priority issues that affect Hamiltonians. Addressing the city's high poverty rate, it launched a multi-year commitment to poverty reduction in 2002, with a focus on strengthening low-income neighbourhoods, engaging and supporting residents to take a leadership and have a voice in the changes needed. This strategy was later adopted by the City of Hamilton in creating the Neighbourhood Development Strategy office in 2010.
HCF participated in The Hamilton Spectator Code Red study of various public health indicators by neighbourhood across the city in 2004, and was a co-founder of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction with the City of Hamilton and other community stakeholders. "HRPR" has earned national attention[1] for its innovative approach to poverty reduction.
Some of other community leadership projects include:
• The Nurse Family Partnership, an intensive evidence-based program that puts new mothers together with a public health nurse from pregnancy through to the child’s second birthday. It has proven to improve health and social outcomes for low-income mothers and their children. HCF has funded the program since 2008, and in 2012 partnered with Human Resources Development Canada and local community organizations to expand the program to support young, first-time moms who have graduated from the program.
• The Promise is a community-wide program that originated in Kalamazoo, Michigan to provide post-secondary support to students who graduate from the city’s publicly funded schools. It has since been undertaken by a number of other U.S. cities. In 2011 HCF began exploring what a similar program could mean for Hamilton and has engaged consultants from the W.E. Upjohn Institute to research the type of program that might work in Hamilton.
• Examining the impact of public policy in creating healthier neighbourhoods throughout the whole city of Hamilton, the foundation has worked to help the community learn about mixed-income neighbourhoods and schools. The Foundation has underaken a study on the relationship between income and school performance in Hamilton to examine the principles learned within a Hamilton context
Community Investing
In October 2010, HCF's board of directors established a $5 million fund to create the Hamilton Community Investing Fund enabling the foundation to put more of its assets to work locally. The fund HCF will enable the foundation to invest directly some of its assets into the community, or social/environmental enterprises consistent with their mission, rather than into the stock market. The investments can take the form of direct investment into charitable or non-profit ventures, or as loans to qualified organizations for purposes which further the foundation’s mission.
In May 2011, HCF announced its partnership with the Community Forward Fund to offer loans to the charitable and non-profit sector. CFF will provide the due diligence, administration, and evaluation services for loans, and will also offer financial advisory services to these loan recipients.
In August 2011, the first loan was made to Hamilton Artists Inc. a long-standing artist-run centre that supports and reflects the diverse environment of the community. A loan from HCF’s community investment fund allowed them to complete a building project in the city's burgeoning James Street North arts community while awaiting promised financing that had been delayed.
In 2013, HCF moved on a number of investment strategies targeting financial returns coupled with social impact, using the majority of The Young Fund – HCF’s largest donor-advised fund – as a pilot for selecting socially responsible investments in the public markets (where environmental, social and governance practices are important investment considerations). The balance of The Young Fund is being used for directly investing in funds and organizations that seek both social and financial returns. As of June 2013, direct investment commitments have been made in three organizations: Sarona Frontier Markets, Resilient Capital and Greenchip Global Equity Fund.
Hamilton's Vital Signs
On October 4, 2012, HCF published the third edition of Hamilton's Vital Signs, an update on its two previous reports which examine various aspects of community health, in co-operation with the Hamilton Spectator. Hamilton's Vital Signs looks at such aspects as the gap between rich and poor, environment, belonging and leadership, economy, learning, health, housing, transportation, arts, safety and education. The reports have supported the findings of wide neighbourhood disparity brought to public attention by the Spectator's Code Red series. A monthly series on local Cable 14 is supplementing the public's understanding of the issues.
References
- ↑ "City's poverty strategy draws national interest". (thespec.com). Retrieved 2010-06-10.
