Our Mission:
The Rosamond Gifford Charitable Corporation (The Gifford Foundation) is a private
foundation dedicated to the stewardship of the funds entrusted to its care. The
Foundation is committed to using its financial and human resources to build the
capacity of individuals and organizations to enhance the quality of life for
the people of Central New York.
Grantmaking Philosophy
Through our grantmaking, we fund
organizations in an intentionally transformative and flexible manner. It is our fundamental belief that change at
the individual and/or organizational level holds the potential to institute
change at broader community levels.
Through our neighborhood work, our
goal is to help neighborhood residents expand their vision for the future,
provide the resources and tools to achieve their vision and insure their access
and inclusion in civic discourse concerning their community. We are particularly interested
in supporting populations that lack influence and opportunity in their
respective surroundings.
Through our community grantmaking,
we work in partnership with not for profit organizations. Our goal is to encourage strong, capable and
durable organizations, which in turn represent the foundation for a strong
community. Our grantmaking is designed
to provide opportunities for honest reflection,
assessment and action steps, including collaborative partnerships, that
will help organizations become more sustainable and better able to serve the
community.
Neighborhood Initiatives
In 2003, the Foundation committed to
focusing a substantial portion of its annual community investment towards a
specific initiative. The board elected to “embed” the Foundation into a
neighborhood on Syracuse’s
Southside.
A 30-block area previously disenfranchised both physically and fiscally
was selected as a focus for revitalization. During 2008 the Foundation began to develop a similar initiative on the Near West Side of Syracuse. For more information on these
resident-driven initiatives, please see the Initiatives section
of this website.
Community Capacity Initiative
In the Fall of 2007, the Foundation
committed to a new direction in grantmaking. The nature of many nonprofits’
missions requires annual subsidies from foundations, corporate, government and
individual donors to fund their operating budgets, which can lead to some
dependency. Although a certain amount of dependency is to be expected,
dependency that subtly shifts organizational responsibility and destiny control
away from the nonprofit to a foundation or other funder is a phenomenon the
Gifford Initiative will seek to reverse. Thus through a series of
value-added
investments, e.g. investments in capacity-building activities along with program grants, Gifford’s
ADVANS Initiative
and its
community capacity
grants will reinforce the dynamic of “destiny control.”
The Foundation offers grants for both traditional program funding and for capacity building; the process involves an exploration, with organizations, of their ability to foster and sustain their activities in order to reach the greatest impact to the community.
APPLYING
FOR GRANTS
Neighborhood Initiative Grant applications: You may learn more about the neighborhood
initiatives by clicking HERE. If your
organization is interested in applying for a grant connected to the
neighborhood work, please contact the Foundation for a meeting by calling
315-474-2489. There are rolling deadlines for submission.
Community Capacity Grant applications:We also welcome the opportunity to discuss our capacity and program grants with any organization. We ask that you schedule an appointment with Gifford staff to discuss the process by calling 315-474-2489. For more information on capacity and program grants please see the Grantmaking section of this website. The upcoming deadlines for grant submission are June 1 and September 15 but organizations must be invited to submit a proposal.