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Taking Philanthropy to a Higher Level

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Opinion

Editorial

 

The Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts announced recently that Katie Allan Zobel will be stepping down from her role as president and CEO of that vital agency. A search for a successor has commenced and a transition should be completed by September.

We’re confident that a worthy successor will be named, but these will be big shoes to fill, indeed. During her tenure, Zobel took an already successful agency to new heights in terms of the work that it does and the lives that it impacts, and she is to be commended for all that she has done.

The Community Foundation was never just about writing checks and dispensing scholarships to students and funds to nonprofits. But on Zobel’s watch, the agency took philanthropy in many different directions, but especially the realm of working to solve problems in our community rather than simply throw money at them.

Under Zobel’s leadership, the Community Foundation of Western Mass. launched Valley Gives, which has raised more than $10 million through annual one-day, on-line fundraising campaigns for local nonprofits. Valley Gives has helped bring attention to the needs of hundreds of the region’s nonprofits, and it inspires more individuals and groups to give, because the foundation has made it easier to do so.

Another initiative launched during Zobel’s tenure is Valley Gives, a partnership with the Barr Foundation established to support a vibrant arts and creativity sector in Western Mass., an initiative that is already giving a louder, stronger voice to this important sector of the local economy.

Still another initiative launched during Zobel’s tenure is an effort to support research on college completion, with the understanding that it’s not enough to give a worthy student a scholarship; there is a need to help ensure that the student can successfully complete their college education and then put their degree to work.

And then, at the height of the pandemic, Zobel led efforts to create the Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund to support community members and nonprofit partners most severely impacted by the pandemic and its many side-effects.

It was initiatives like these and Zobel’s leadership efforts to create them that earned her the distinction of being named one of BusinessWest’s Women of Impact, and the Community Foundation itself being named a Difference Maker by the magazine this spring.

But for Zobel, it’s never been about awards, and it has never been about her. Instead, it’s been about her team, and a laser focus on how the foundation can make this region stronger and more resilient.

In short, she has helped take philanthropy to a higher plane in this region, and she is to be commended for the many accomplishments she has led.

Banks, Credit Unions Ramp Up Philanthropy During Difficult Year

By
Banking and Financial Services

Checking on the Community

Paul Scully

Paul Scully says much of Country Bank’s philanthropy in 2020 was directed at “COVID-related initiatives.”

Paul Scully says local philanthropy is baked into the DNA of this region’s financial institutions.

“Banks have always been great about supporting communities. And we are fairly philanthropic,” Country Bank’s president and CEO added, noting that the bank gave $1.3 million to local nonprofits last year, touching about 400 different organizations in some way.

Those numbers aren’t atypical. What made 2020 slightly different is where that money went.

“Of that, about a half-million went to what I would call COVID-related initiatives,” Scully said, citing causes ranging from equipping frontline workers at hospitals to meeting soaring demand at local food banks due to the pandemic’s economic impact on families.

At Freedom Credit Union’s April board meeting — the first one after it and the region’s other banking institutions closed their doors in mid-March — President and CEO Glenn Welch said he asked to make larger monthly donations to the community than usual.

“I told them, ‘I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but we need to support the community.’ The board agreed and allocated a chunk of money that we could utilize in the community.”

In the days that followed, Freedom announced a donation of $55,000 to be dispersed among several community organizations at the front lines of the local fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, including Baystate Health Foundation; Mercy Medical Center; Cooley Dickinson Health Care; the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts; Hampshire Hospitality Group, whose Hampshire County Heroes feed first responders in Hampshire County; and Feed the Fight, an initiative of Peter Pan Bus Lines and area restaurants to feed healthcare workers and first responders in the community.

“If you’re still employed with no interruption in your household income, you might not realize a lot people were living on a shoestring, and that shoestring broke. The opportunity to donate and give back is huge.”

“A lot of those are things we haven’t done every year,” Welch said, noting that the credit union’s philanthropic contributions were up 17% from 2019 to 2020, even though it was a tougher financial year for financial institutions.

It’s a story being told across the region — not that banks and credit unions are being more generous this year (although, in many cases, they are), but that the pandemic has revealed different needs, causing a shift in where those grants are being targeted.

In September, for instance, the Berkshire Bank Foundation contributed an additional $1 million — over its $3 million total annual grant budget — to collaborative efforts supporting nonprofit organizations responding to rising community needs, including MHA, the YMCA of Greater Springfield, Western Massachusetts SCORE, and the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, among others.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our local communities in ways that no one could have predicted, and the economic impact has created significant challenges for organizations who help so many every day,” said Jim Hickson, Berkshire Bank’s Pioneer Valley regional president.

The foundation’s grants have supported community-based organizations in the areas of housing, food security, health supplies, student aid, small-business assistance — all needs that have been heightened by a pandemic whose impacts will continue to be felt well into 2021.

 

First Response

Some of the earliest contributions from banks and credit unions, at the start of the pandemic, were targeted to hospitals and first responders. Country Bank donated $250,000 to four local hospitals, and also gave $50,000 to the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department’s First Responder Recovery Home, which provided a safe haven for doctors, nurses, EMTs, police, firefighters, and corrections professionals who were diagnosed with COVID-19, but couldn’t safely go home to recover without jeopardizing the health of a vulnerable family member.

Glenn Welch

Glenn Welch

“I told them, ‘I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but we need to support the community.’ The board agreed and allocated a chunk of money that we could utilize in the community.”

As the pandemic evolved and other nonprofits began reshaping their missions to respond to it, Country Bank directed funds to organizations like the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, Springfield Rescue Mission, and Friends of the Homeless, as well as similar organizations in the Worcester area.

PeoplesBank’s charitable giving in 2020 surpassed its previous record high, totaling $1,300,000, and benefiting 292 different nonprofits in the region. While the long-standing funding priorities of PeoplesBank include education, community vibrancy, and environmental sustainability, support in 2020 also included donations to COVID-19 emergency relief funds, purchases of PPE for frontline responders, organizations fighting food insecurity and homelessness, and many area youth groups and early-childhood education centers.

“We try to say ‘no’ as infrequently as possible,” said Matt Bannister, the bank’s senior vice president of Marketing and Corporate Responsibility — even though last year’s needs definitely widened, especially considering that many nonprofits gain much of their funding from annual events that never happened.

“When the COVID hit the fan, we said to all our nonprofits we had agreements with, ‘we are going to honor all our commitments, even if you can’t hold your gala or your walk. The money’s still yours,’” Bannister said.

“The event may go away, but the need doesn’t,” he continued. “On one hand, if they don’t have the event, they don’t have to spend money on it, so that’s good. But these events are money makers. They were counting on this revenue. The visibility we get from these events is nice, but the real reason we do it is to support that cause, not because they put our logo on a T-shirt.”

Matt Bannister

Matt Bannister

“The event may go away, but the need doesn’t. On one hand, if they don’t have the event, they don’t have to spend money on it, so that’s good. But these events are money makers. They were counting on this revenue. The visibility we get from these events is nice, but the real reason we do it is to support that cause, not because they put our logo on a T-shirt.”

 

Kevin Day, president and CEO of Florence Bank, said his institution had no inclination to take back money spent to support such events.

“COVID drove everyone indoors this year, and a lot of events got canceled,” Day said. “We usually sign up for events, and we send money ahead of time. The nonprofits all reached out and said, “we’re not going to hold this ball or gala. Do you need the money back?’ But we’re here to support you, and the fact that you can’t throw a ball actually makes it more important that we support you. So even though we didn’t get to go to these events, we still made the donations; that didn’t change a bit.”

Later in the year, as nonprofits scrambled to find other ways to raise funds, banks looked for new ways to support them, Bannister added. “Like, the Community Foundation put together an emergency COVID fund — there’s a new need. We contributed to buy PPE for the frontline workers — that was something that wasn’t a need before. And a number of chambers put together microgrant programs for the members in their communities, with a special round of fundraising for that, and we supported that, too.”

 

Food for Thought

Like PeoplesBank, Florence Bank directs its philanthropy in a few general ways.

“We’ve always focused on what we call the three H’s: hungry, hurt, homeless. We thought food-insecure people having trouble getting food and buying food might be a big deal this year, so we said, ‘hey, let’s do everything we can in that area, if possible,’” Day said, adding that Florence has made good on that pledge by supporting 11 different food pantries and homeless shelters.

“We’ve always supported many of these organizations,” he was quick to add, but cast a wider net this year, donating nearly $100,000 to 10 organizations that address food insecurity.

Kevin Day

“We’ve always focused on what we call the three H’s: hungry, hurt, homeless.”

“We are so grateful. Without the support of donors, we would not have been able to continue our mission,” Ruben Reyes, executive director of Lorraine’s Soup Kitchen & Pantry in Chicopee, one of the recipients, said in December. “COVID has affected us very hard. All of our fundraisers were canceled, and we were very worried about how to fund our programs.”

Compounding the problem, COVID-19 has also affected Lorraine’s clientele. Reyes said he is seeing an additional 200 to 300 families each month, and provides a month’s supply of groceries and dinners five nights a week to a total of 600 to 700 families. “We’re seeing a lot more families who typically would not need pantry services. They are coming to our doors for the very first time.”

Meanwhile, Scully noted that a Greater Boston Food Bank report that food insecurity in Massachusetts reached an all-time high in November. The state has experienced a 59% increase since 2018, representing more than 1 million people in need of food assistance. Most people are using food pantries for the first time.

“We’ve seen the demand at the food banks, and in so many other different areas,” he told BusinessWest, noting that Country has donated more than $130,000 to local food pantries throughout the year. “We’ve always supported local food pantries and food banks, and we made significant contributions to them as well. Everyone is feeling the demands are greater than ever.”

As another example of the way financial institutions have rallied to the cause of food insecurity, Freedom Credit Union partnered with its members and the local community in December by matching funds donated to benefit the Pioneer Valley USO.

Located at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee, that organization provides more than 102,000 pounds of food to more than 3,200 individuals annually through the Emergency Food Pantry, among other efforts.

“We’d heard that some of the people who serve us in the military are having trouble feeding their families, and the food pantries need to be stocked,” Welch said. “It’s pretty sad when people in the U.S. have to be going to the food banks, with the loss of jobs due to COVID. A lot of people are hurting this year.”

All the region’s banks and credit unions helped customers who were struggling financially in other ways as well, such as mortgage and loan deferrals and relief loans.

“All the institutions did a lot to help members by deferring payments and coming up with loan programs,” Welch said. “It’s important to help people out, and we’re still doing that.”

 

Community Partners

While food insecurity and other basic needs are front of mind these days, banks and credit unions support a host of other nonprofits as well, many of which rely on performances, events, and member activity to pay their bills. Many of these were able to pivot to virtual events to maintain connections with the community until they can go back to live events, but those don’t bring in nearly as much funding as in-person gatherings.

Through its philanthropic efforts, Scully said “what we try to do is help communities thrive, whether it’s economic health, physical health, or nutritional health. Put all those pieces together, and these communities will thrive. If there’s a need and we’re able to help satisfy some of these needs, we’ll do our part to the extent we can.”

That attitude, at most local financial institutions, extends beyond monetary donations into volunteerism, Bannister noted.

“We’ve averaged about 10,000 volunteer hours across the organization pretty consistently for the past four or five years,” he said, adding that the total in 2020 was closer to 5,000, due to organizations moving to remote operations and events being canceled. “That wasn’t from a lack of desire; people were concerned about going out in public, so there was a lack of opportunity. We expect that to come back this year as things start to open up again.”

At an employee giving campaign in November, the bank actually had more associates give more money this year than ever before, Bannister added. “That could have gone the other way. There’s a lot more economic insecurity out there. So that, to us, was a sign that folks are still engaged, and they still want to give.”

While nonprofits have cut back hours and volunteers can’t always come in, especially at organizations that deal with an older population. “people have been creative,” Scully said. “We work once a month with the Ware mobile food pantry. We were there the week before Christmas, and that had upwards of 300 cars coming in. They turned it into a mobile experience. There’s a group of us there, you’re outside, masks on. It’s a way to give back, volunteer, and be safe.”

After all, he added, people want to help, and so do banks.

Day said the outpouring of concern was so great in 2020 that some nonprofits actually weathered the early months of the pandemic well.

“In March, maybe the first week of April, I think my supposition would have been that everyone is going to be hurting instantly,” he said. “But I’m involved in several nonprofit boards, and across the region, many are saying their needs have been met, in my view, pretty well.”

But 2021 poses a trap of sorts.

“The critical aspect is coming in the next year,” Day said. “Many of them received a great deal of donations during this past year, and we’re happy to do our part. I think the needs will come as the recovery moves along this year, once the perception of need goes away.”

That’s because human needs are still great among families that come to nonprofits for help, especially those in the lower economic strata who have experienced economic devastation. “They’re going to need continued support, and I expect that need will continue through 2021, easily.”

Scully agreed. “The needs are greater than the average person realizes. If you’re still employed with no interruption in your household income, you might not realize a lot people were living on a shoestring, and that shoestring broke. The opportunity to donate and give back is huge.”

And will remain so going forward, Day added.

“We gave more money this year than we ever have, sprayed it around, touched every aspect of the nonprofit world,” he said. “People know we’re a good partner of the community, and we’re happy to help out those in need.”

 

Joseph Bednar can be reached at [email protected]

 

Paul Belsito Eyes ‘Impact Philanthropy’ as He Takes Helm at Davis Foundation

By
Paul Belsito
Features Special Coverage

Mission: Accepted

Paul Belsito

Paul Belsito

Paul Belsito admits he’s struggling somewhat with Zoom and conference calls — not the technology, but the nature of those forms of communication.

He’s a people person, and he likes meeting them face to face — and not on screen or over the phone.

“I enjoy going to events and networking — that’s how I meet people,” he said, noting that there haven’t been any opportunities like that since he’s arrived, and he’s looking to the day when they return. “Zoom is OK, and I’m getting good at it, but it’s not the same.”

But it is reality in the summer of 2020, and this is how Belsito, chosen late this spring to fill the rather large shoes of Mary Walachy as executive director of the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation, has been going about what will remain his primary assignment for the foreseeable future.

And that is to ‘meet’ as many people as possible and come to fully understand the many issues and challenges facing the Western Mass. community.

“This is a world built on relationships, and you have to understand people’s perspectives and listen actively so you can help build on the foundation that’s been laid,” he explained, adding that, since arriving in early June, he’s been doing a lot of listening, with the intention of acting — and collaborating with others — on what he’s hearing.

It’s an assignment he accepts with considerable enthusiasm, and one to which he brings an intriguing background, blending work in financial services, government (he was district director for state Sen. Edward Augustus), higher education (he was executive assistant to the president at Assumption College in Worcester, his alma mater), and philanthropy; most recently he served as president of the Hanover Insurance Group Foundation in Worcester and assistant vice president for Community Relations.

And he intends to draw on all that experience in a role that involves everything from community outreach to regional problem solving, but mostly comes down to what Belsito calls “impact philanthropy.”

“A lot of my work has been grounded in community work,” he said, using that phrase to describe many of his career stops. “Getting involved and influencing has always been part of my DNA, and it’s generational in many ways — my family was very involved in the community in Worcester.”

This devotion to community work, as well as an opportunity to continue and build on Davis Foundation initiatives in literacy, early-childhood education, improving the Springfield Public Schools, and other endeavors, drew him to the Davis Foundation, created by George Davis, founder of American Saw & Manufacturing, and his wife Irene, and the opportunity to succeed Walachy, whose work he has admired from Worcester.

“The work that Davis has done in literacy and specifically early education is well-known throughout the Commonwealth,” he noted. “I had known them from that lens of an active member in a peer community trying to work on the same issues; Mary is a household name in the early-education space throughout the Commonwealth, and her name is often brought up as someone to model in her guidance on how to pull these programs together.”

Coming to Springfield from Worcester, Belsito said there are many similarities between the state’s second- and third-largest cities (with Worcester being the former), and common challenges. These include everything from education to economic development and job creation. But they are different and unique communities with their own “personalities,” as he called them.

“This is a world built on relationships, and you have to understand people’s perspectives and listen actively so you can help build on the foundation that’s been laid.”

“Worcester and Springfield are not the same, although they do have similar traits,” he noted. “It’s my job to listen and maybe take some of my experiences from Worcester and share those with folks in Springfield. Maybe one in 20 will catch and improve the lives of children and families.”

Meanwhile, recent events have brought other priorities to the fore, including the plight of the region’s nonprofits, many of which have been severely impacted by the pandemic from the standpoints of revenue and sustainability, and the broad issue of racial justice, which the foundation has helped address through creation of the Healing Racism Institute, now a separate 501(c)(3), but still very much affiliated with the Davis Foundation.

Educare Springfield

Paul Belsito says his primary goal is to build on the foundation created by the Davis Foundation with initiatives such as Educare Springfield, a unique early-education facility that opened its doors last fall.

And these emerging issues are dominating many of those discussions he’s been having as he goes about listening and building relationships.

For this issue, BusinessWest talked at length with Belsito about his new role, but especially about the challenges facing Springfield, the region, and its large core of nonprofits — all of which have looked to the Davis Foundation over the years for not simply financial support, but also direction and leadership.

Moving forward, he said the foundation will be continuing in those roles and constantly looking for new ways in which to make an impact and move the needle.

Background: Check

Tracing the steps that brought him to the Davis Foundation’s suite of offices in Monarch Place, Belsito said his professional career started at Flagship Bank and Trust Co. in Worcester, where he served as a trust administrator, working with families to help manage their assets and trusts.

While in that role, he started doing volunteer work within the community, and before long, his career aspirations changed.

“All of a sudden, everything flipped, and the volunteer work became a career,” he told BusinessWest, adding that, in 2005, he started working for Augustus, now the city manager in Worcester. After a stint as a private consultant, he became executive assistant to the president at Assumption, which was, in many ways, a continuation of the work he did at the State House.

“I worked for a state senator who was very driven by policy, not politics,” he explained. “His mindset was, while we were in that building, how could we improve the lives of people not only in that district, but across the Commonwealth? The policy piece was very important to me, and it carried over to the higher-education piece.”

From Assumption, he went to Hanover Insurance, which, like MassMutual in this market, has historically been deeply involved in the community, often serving as a “catalyst for change,” as he put it.

He started in community relations and eventually became president of the Hanover Insurance Group Foundation.

“As we began to pivot on how to not only make the company a world-class company but also the city in which it was headquartered, I did a lot of work with the Worcester Public Schools, with the Hanover Theater, and various organizations within the community that really helped to round out the experience for children and families so that they would be successful out in the community,” he said, noting that perhaps the most significant initiative launched by the Hanover Foundation is the Advancement Via Individualized Determination (AVID) college-readiness program in the Worcester Public Schools.

“It was an honor to work for a company that was so committed to impact philanthropy,” he went on, “which is trying to move the needle and have outcomes and data that support the investment that you’re making.”

Slicing through his job description at Davis, he said it’s to generate this type of needle-moving philanthropy — or more of it, because the foundation has been involved in a number of potentially game-changing initiatives, including Cherish Every Child, a nationally recognized Reading Success by 4th Grade program, the advocacy group Springfield Business Leaders for Education, and, most recently, the effort to establish the innovative Educare Springfield early-education center, which opened last fall near the campus of Springfield College.

“One of the things that struck me about the Davis family was the humility with which they do their work. They want to be sure they’re supporting things that generate outcomes and improve the quality of education and quality of life for children and families in the region.”

The desire to continue such initiatives and create more of them brought Belsito to Springfield (via Zoom) to interview for the Davis job, a job posting that came about as he was looking for a new challenge after spending a short stint working for the city of Worcester on its COVID-19 response.

“I had known of Davis for a long time — and we actually used Davis and the work that Springfield was doing as one of the models as we were developing a reading-for-success program what would work best for our community.”

Forward Thinking

Looking ahead, Belsito said that, as the Davis Foundation continues its mission of service to the community, the specific direction of its initiatives will be determined by recognized needs within area cities and towns.

But he’s certain that education and a hard focus on young people will be at the heart of those discussions.

“One of the things that struck me about the Davis family was the humility with which they do their work,” he explained. “They want to be sure they’re supporting things that generate outcomes and improve the quality of education and quality of life for children and families in the region.

“And if you look at the legacy of the family, that’s been a consistent theme,” he went on. “And as we look to the next phase of where the Davis family’s impact will be, I believe that it will consistently be in education and literacy, but we also have a new generation of family members who are getting more active within the community, so how do we integrate some of their perspectives in making sure that we have a consistent, shared goal of improving the lives of children and families in Hampden County?”

Beyond this shared goal, there are new and emerging needs within the community, he said, noting, as one example, the mounting challenges facing the region’s large core of nonprofit organizations, many of which were struggling with finances before COVID-19.

“Many nonprofits are in a vulnerable state from a financial perspective,” he noted. “And this experience from the past few months has only exacerbated that. So we want to look at how Davis and organizations like the Community Foundation of Western Mass. can come together to help ensure that the mission-driven organizations that are needed for the community to be successful can thrive and be able to provide the services they need.

“Even from the start of my interview process at Davis to today, a lot has changed,” Belsito went on, referring not only to the pandemic and its repercussions, but also George Floyd’s death and the resulting focus on racial justice. “Perspectives have changed, and priorities have changed, and so we need to convene people at the local level and ask, ‘what does this community need to be successful?’”

What hasn’t changed are the many social determinants of health — from housing and transportation to food insecurity and job losses — that are impacting quality of life in the region, he continued, adding that COVID-19 has helped shine a light on inequities in the system and the need to initiate steps to address them.

And when it comes to such efforts and other initiatives, the key is listening to members of the community and creating a dialogue about to address these problems, he said, adding that the Davis Foundation has historically been a leader in such discussions, and it will continue to play that role into the future.

“I’m a believer that, when you pull people together, there’s usually a solution that can be found,” he said, using that phrase to refer to everything from the sustainability of nonprofits to improving public education.

‘Meeting’ the Challenge

Left with what he says is little choice, Belsito has become quite savvy with Zoom and other virtual methods for meeting and getting to know people.

It’s not as he would want it, but it is indeed reality. And so are the many challenges confronting Springfield and the region, many of them amplified or accelerated by a pandemic that has been relentless.

Belsito said his first assignment is to understand what makes Springfield Springfield, and it is ongoing. From there, his job is to pull people together — something the Davis Foundation has always been good at it — and, when possible, move the needle.

He’s made it a career to take on such work, and he’s more than excited about what the next chapter might bring.

George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]

Giving Guide 2019

By
Cover Story Giving Guide Special Publications

Regional Philanthropic Opportunities

View the PDF flipbook

While philanthropy is a year-round activity, the holidays are a time when many of us think about those who are most in need, and how, in general, they can help make Western Mass. a better community for all who call this region home.

To help individuals, groups, and businesses make effective decisions when it comes to philanthropy, BusinessWest and the Healthcare News present the annual Giving Guide. Open the PDF flipbook to view profiles of several area nonprofit organizations, a sampling of this region’s thousands of nonprofits.

These profiles are intended to educate readers about what these groups are doing, and also to inspire them to provide the critical support (which comes in many different forms) that these organizations and so many others desperately need. Indeed, these profiles list not only giving opportunities — everything from online donations to corporate sponsorships — but also volunteer opportunities.

And it is through volunteering, as much as with a cash donation, that individuals can help a nonprofit carry out its important mission within our community.

BusinessWest and HCN launched the Giving Guide in 2011 to essentially harness this region’s incredibly strong track record of philanthropy and support the organizations dedicated to helping those in need.

The publication is designed to inform, but also to encourage individuals and organizations to find new and imaginative ways to give back. We are confident that it will succeed with both of these assignments.

George O’Brien, Editor
John Gormally, Publisher
Kate Campiti, Associate Publisher

 

 

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