The Gifford Foundation, formally known as the Rosamond Gifford Charitable Corporation, has long been a major philanthropic organization in Syracuse and Central New York. Below you will find a history of Ms. Gifford, and an update on the Foundation's more recent grantmaking directions.
Excerpted from Promise & Performance: The Rosamond Gifford Charitable Corporation. Copyright 2003. 
The story of Rosamond Gifford is a fascinating one. The adored only child of one of Syracuse’s most prominent families, she was born in 1873 and grew up to be an accomplished musician making her home in Boston. Leaving behind friends and a budding music career, she returned to Syracuse in 1913 to manage her father’s farm and business affairs. At her passing in 1953, at the age of 79, she was a recluse, living in Jewell, NY on the shores of Oneida Lake, her only companions goats, horses and cats. Her life, as we understand it, was one of great sadness and conflict. Yet today there stands as her legacy a Foundation working to serve the needs of the community she so consciously shunned.
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In 1954, a small group of people who had known Rosamond Gifford, and who had been instrumental in providing expertise in her business affairs, met for the first board meeting of the Rosamond Gifford Charitable Corporation… With assets of almost $6 million, the Gifford Foundation, as it soon became known, was the largest single charitable corporation then operating in Onondaga County, and the Foundation took its work very seriously. Support from the Gifford Foundation provided funding to create the Graduate School of Social Work at Syracuse University. Soon, Syracuse Stage, Syracuse Symphony, WCNY Channel 24 (known then at ETV), Community General Hospital and other organization in the community received generous support from Gifford.
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While funds were being dispensed, something else was happening as well. Board members and the executive director began to speak out about issues of importance to the community. Time and again, in newspaper articles we read of comments … addressing pressing social needs, community needs and funding issues…Now, [over] 50 years later, the board and staff are still engaged in that work.
Preamble: The Gifford Foundation at 50:
Nurturing Ideas, Changing Lives for 50 Years.
The Gifford Foundation Today
Within the past ten years the Foundation began a shift in its grantmaking strategies. This included a more proactive approach, smaller grants to more grass-roots organizations, and extensive outreach in the community. It has become clear that one cannot address the needs of the citizens of this area, and the needs of the nonprofit community, without also addressing larger community and economic development issues. Thus to the role of funder the Foundation has taken on the added role of convener, frequently bringing together elected officials, academicians, community leaders, nonprofit executives and, most importantly, residents themselves, to discuss both specific and general concerns.
This new direction first manifested itself in Foundation Initiatives. In 2003 the Foundation, utilizing the principles of Asset Based Community Development, began to work with residents of the Southside of Syracuse in a five-year plan to improve housing, employment and quality of life issues. In 2008 the Foundation began a similar program on the Near Westside of Syracuse. For further information on the neighborhood initiatives please click here.
In early 2007 the Foundation decided to re-direct their regular community grantmaking towards building organizational capacity, with the goal of having durable impact and stability. This involved not only a change in outlook and process, but a need to identify a model and common language for all nonprofits to work with as they assessed their capacity needs. This model was found in the work of Dr. Susan Kenny Stevens’ Nonprofit Lifecycles: Stage Based Wisdom for Nonprofit Capacity. With this approach in hand, the staff and board developed an intensive pilot program based on Dr. Stevens' work: ADVANS, or Advancing the Value and Assets of Nonprofits in Syracuse. The success of that program's first year has led the Foundation, in 2008, to apply its principles to all aspects of community grantmaking.
The economic downturn of 2008-2009 spurred the Foundation to explore different methods to help organizations in difficult times. This led to the launch in October 2009 of Giffordslist, a resource sharing website partnering nonprofits and businesses. This free website now has 250 members and an average of 100 postings each day, ranging from needed and available equipment to announcements of local and national grant oppportunities, workshops and trainings. Visit www.giffordslist.org.