Grants/Grantees
TRCF makes grants to organizations for projects that:
- Develop new, grassroots leadership
- Have strong components of community organizing, outreach and education
- Promote the development of youth leadership and activism
- Explore new approaches to problem solving
- Identify emerging or cutting edge issues
- Build coalitions that take advantage of shared visions, joint strategies and complementary efforts.
Most grantees fall into one or more of five focus areas:
- Economic Justice
- Women, Youth and Families
- Racial Justice
- Disability Rights
- GLBT Issues (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender)
Other grantees (including arts and environmental groups) have proposed projects that further the goal of social justice. |
Latin American Cultural Union
The Latin American Cultural Union experienced a transition in its leadership as a result of TRCF funding. The 1999 proposal described a project through which Hispanic youth in Pittsburgh would "explore their cultural identity and acquire organizational and leadership skills needed to actively participate in shaping the future of American society." The result was a "retablo" designed around the theme "Past, Present and Future: The Journey of Hispanics in Pittsburgh" and exhibited at the Andy Warhol Museum of Art. As intended, the project encouraged and supported youth and family responsibility and leadership; however, according to past board member Brent Rondon, the TRCF grant "unleashed leaders in the group that were hidden," and who have since gone on to take more active roles in both the organization and the community.
River City Nonviolence Resistance Campaign
The River City Nonviolence Resistance Campaign received one of TRCF's initial grants in 1989 under Community Organizing, Outreach & Education. Molly Rush of the Thomas Merton Center (the project's fiscal sponsor) comments that "the major barrier to citizen action, in my view, is the lack of a framework of understanding how change has come about and how 'ordinary' folks have made a difference. Many have little understanding of how the civil rights movement [and] the labor movement worked. The 'hero' or 'leader' model is what the media and others tend to present. This is so disempowering."
YouthPlaces
YouthPlaces is a youth and community-driven program designed to serve minority, low-income 12-18 year old at-risk youth in public housing communities. In 1999, YouthPlaces used TRCF's application process to invite the youth councils in 12 communities to create and submit their own project proposals. YouthPlaces submitted the strongest of the proposals to TRCF, which in turn, provided grants of $500 and $600 respectively to the Allequippa Terrace Youth Leads Council and the Westgate Youth Leads Council. This process was an effective way to partner with an organization to build leadership and a sense of empowerment among the youth of at-risk communities.
Prevention Point Pittsburgh
The mission of Prevention Point Pittsburgh is to "change the local policy context for HIV and other blood-borne infections prevention work among injection drug users." In 1995, Prevention Point Pittsburgh began providing needle exchange services once a week at a single location in the Hill District. "We have been the only group in Allegheny County providing syringe exchange and related HIV and Hepatitis C prevention resources to out-of-treatment drug users," according to Caroline Acker, president. In her 2001 proposal, she wrote, "Official refusal to provide syringe exchange services reflects the neglect of a marginalized and stigmatized population at risk for contracting [those diseases] in mostly poor, mostly black, injection drug users." Long before public sanction, which came in 2002, Three Rivers Community Foundation was the organization's first source of funding; seven years later, Prevention Point Pittsburgh leveraged TRCF's five grants, totaling $8,450, into a two-year $30,000 grant from the Jewish Healthcare Foundation, and a $180,000 operating budget.
Chain of Hope
TRCF has provided Chain of Hope (COH) with seven program and operating grants since 1991. COH began as a self-help group for the mentally ill, and began to operate a drop-in center in Wilkinsburg in 1988; it was the first facility of its kind in Western Pennsylvania to be run by mental health clients themselves.
Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburgh
The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburgh received a grant in 2001 to increase the center's ability to communicate with sight- and hearing-disabled members of the GLBT community with the purchase of a TeleTypewriter and the creation and distribution of audiocassettes of the center's newsletter and other community publications. |
Some of the groups that have received the greatest cumulative total of TRCF funding over the years--including Thomas Merton Center and Just Harvest Education Fund--represent collective efforts that have been formed around shared causes. Alliance for Progressive Action is an "umbrella group" providing support and technical assistance to more than 50 organizations in the progressive movement. Its 2001 grant focused on developing organizing skills among low-income African-American female activists. The Pittsburgh Coalition to Counter Hate Groups includes representation from the Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commissions, the City of Pittsburgh Police, the American Jewish Committee, the NAACP, and Cry Out/Act Up. It used its 1995 grant to mount a regional conference to provide information about the growth of hate crimes in Pennsylvania, share community responses to hate activities, promote a coordinated law enforcement response to hate crimes, and build grassroots support for gender and sexual preferences to be added to the Pennsylvania Ethnic Intimidation Act. |
