Foundation-Directed Leadership Grantmaking
In LVCF’s Foundation-Directed Leadership Initiatives, the Foundation is a community partner that creates a better future for all by pursuing the community’s greatest opportunities and addressing the most critical challenges, inclusively uniting people, institutions, and resources from throughout the community, and producing significant, widely shared and lasting results. In these initiatives, the Community Foundation provides funding, devotes staff time, and utilizes other resources to further LVCF’s three main focus areas in Early Childhood and Childcare, Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, and Capacity Building. Please view the specific funding and initiatives under each focus area below.
Capacity Building
Grantmaking | Capacity Building
The CORE Fellowship Program is a two-year capacity building process designed to bring diverse Lehigh Valley nonprofit leaders together to center equity in themselves, their relationships, their organizations, and the Lehigh Valley non-profit sector.
The program consists of peer-to-peer learning, individual coaching, consultant pairing for an organizational equity discovery process, and funding to support organizational capacity-building. The fellowship is designed for both nonprofit leaders and their organizations to support equitable change in delivering on their personal and professional mission.
Goal: Utilizing an equity-centered capacity building approach, LVCF will support individuals and organizations to be equitable in how they operate and how they act.
Background:
During March 2022, LVCF launched the CORE Fellowship Program that was based off LVCF’s experience in both the Nonprofit Effectiveness Program and Project Equity Initiative, that was jointly launched with UWGLV and FACES International. After formally evaluating the first two years of the Nonprofit Effectiveness Program, the Community Foundation began planning the next iteration of this grantmaking program—which led to the development of the CORE Fellowship Program. The Community Foundation gathered feedback from past and current program grantees and valued partners. To learn more about the history of the Nonprofit Effectiveness Program.
Community Leadership | Capacity Building
The Community Foundation staff have provided leadership in a number of initiatives that support capacity building among nonprofit organizations. Initiatives include Project Equity Initiative and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank Reinventing Our Communities Program. In addition, staff provide leadership and participate in collaboratives such as the regional Strategic Response Team, Technical Assistance Working Group of the Strategic Response Team, and the Lehigh Valley Funders Group. Learn more…
Early Childhood
Grantmaking | Early Childhood
In 2022, LVCF named early childhood has one of the foundation’s three key focus areas due to a growing early childhood crisis locally and nationally, interest from LVCF’s fundholders, and an opportunity to provide leadership in this critical area. LVCF provides funding for early childhood organizations, raises awareness about this issue, serves as a backbone convenor for the Lehigh Valley’s Early Childhood Action Collaborative, and utilizes LVCF’s other resources and connections to make an impact in this issue area.
• Early Childhood (Overview)
• Early Childhood Grantmaking – LVCF distributes nearly $200K annually in general operating grants to area nonprofits for early childhood services.
• Early Childhood Action Collaboration
Arts, Culture & Creative Economy
Grantmaking | Arts, Culture & Creative Economy
The staff of the Community Foundation participates in several collaboratives that are important to promoting and providing arts & culture in the region. The Lehigh Valley Community Foundation is the regional partner agency of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Through the Partners in the Arts program, LVCF works with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to distribute grant awards for projects or programs involving artists throughout Region 5, which includes: Carbon, Monroe, Lehigh, and Northampton counties. This program enables the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts to reach a wider audience by increasing access to funds for organizations and artists across the state, thereby increasing statewide audience exposure to arts activities. Learn more…
The Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts grants are divided into two grant programs:
Community Leadership | Arts, Culture & Creative Economy
The staff of the Community Foundation participates in several collaboratives that are important to promoting and providing arts & culture in the region including Touchstone Theatre’s Festival Unbound Council and Any Given Child Bethlehem.
ASK MEGAN | Learn more about the community investments/grants opportunities at LVCF
Megan Briggs
Vice President of Community Investments
Lehigh Valley Community Foundation
840. W. Hamilton Street, Suite 310
Allentown, PA 18101
610 351-5353, ext. 21 | megan@lvcfoundation.org