PEABODY — Local arts, housing and job creation support from the Essex County Community Foundation (ECCF) is getting a boost from a new partnership with similar organizations across Massachusetts.
Organized in response to COVID-19’s onslaught on local economies and nonprofit networks, the Massachusetts Community Foundations Partnership includes Danvers-based ECCF and 13 other community foundations.
The partnership merges 1,100 nonprofit workers’ talents, including ECCF President Beth Francis who said the whole is greater than the sum of its parts when it comes to nonprofit organizations collaborating to help one another, strengthen services and identify people in need.
“We aim to focus our initial capacity building programs on organizations that have not had access to consultants or other support services, advocate on behalf of the underserved, and to ensure the racial, geographic, and subsector diversity of participants,” Francis said.
Francis also serves as co-chair of the new partnership and said combining and sharing resources is even more important with COVID-19 forcing many community foundations to meet and provide services online.
“By working together, foundations will be able to deliver support more efficiently and effectively to a broad audience of nonprofit practitioners, particularly in this virtual world,” Francis said.
ECCF has helped support Peabody Cultural Collaborative and other regional arts programs. Family income inequality is a major ECCF initiative highlighting the 38 percent of Essex County families earning below the $79,000 annual income required for a family of four to make ends meet.
The Partnership starts training sessions for community foundations this month with fundraising, racial justice and diversity among the topics.
“While nonprofits have been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, they are still going above and beyond to meet the significant needs in their communities. We rely on their services now more than ever, and this partnership will maximize our ability to help sustain and enhance their services during the crisis and over time,” said Partnership co-chair Peter Taylor.
“By joining forces, we can work at a larger scale to support nonprofits which will in turn allow them to more effectively support our communities across the Commonwealth,” Taylor added.
The partnership is working closely with Philanthropy Massachusetts and the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network in order to coordinate programming and ensure access to a wide nonprofit audience.
Taylor said it’s appropriate the Partnership’s launch coincides with National Community Foundation Week recognizing the value community foundations bring to their communities.
“Community foundations are among the oldest and most trusted charitable organizations. We operate across the state, providing support to rural and urban communities, with robust networks and relationships in the communities we serve. As our recent experience working with the statewide COVID-19 Relief Fund demonstrated, our knowledge and relationships in local communities result in effective grantmaking and can also benefit a statewide partner in deploying funds in partnership with us.”
