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Statement Against Assaults on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Like many in our local community and across our nation, we at the Community Foundation are deeply grieved by the repeated and escalating attacks targeting Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Over the past year, we have witnessed random beatings of individuals and planned mass murders that have targeted our fellow Americans for no other reason than their race and heritage. These hate crimes are part of a long legacy of terror, violence and murder that has occurred on American soil and that seeks to preserve systems of concentrated power and privilege.

On May 20, 2021, the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act was signed into law. This legislation aims to acknowledge the rise in hate crimes as well as make reporting more accessible, expedite investigations, and prevent future crimes. It is notable and important that the hate crime legislation became law during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. In the last year, there have been over 6,600 instances of hate crimes against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. And we know that many instances targeting these communities go unreported.

It is not enough to acknowledge and condemn the hatred and violence. We have a responsibility also to wrestle with the ways in which we have been complicit as a society in perpetuating manufactured myths of Asian Americans as the model minority and perpetual foreigner. Narratives and tropes like these are tactics of systemic racism that hold in place a hierarchy of human value. In many ways, the recent violence is making visible to the public consciousness an identity and experience that for so long has been deemed acceptable in our society because of its invisibility and ‘proper’ or ‘good’ assimilation. We must resist the persistent temptation to look away.

Tragedy—however close or far—hurts. It hurts us all. At the Community Foundation, we believe that we are deeply interconnected as people sharing a time, a place, a history, and a humanity. We are interconnected both in our victories and in our suffering. While each person feels each tragedy differently based on unique lived experiences and truths, we also know that every human is affected by violence, death, injustice, trauma, loss and pain. Now is a moment to pause and truly listen to the grief expressed by those around us and to hear their stories. In so doing, we can gain the awareness and understanding that allows us to stand in solidarity, to see one another’s humanity, and to pursue together a future where we all can belong and thrive.

New Scholarship to Benefit Charlottesville High School Students

The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation is pleased to announce the establishment of the Elizabeth and Greg Allen Opportunity Fund, a yearly $10,000 scholarship for Charlottesville High School seniors. To qualify, students must plan to attend full time a two-year community college or four-year college or university.

The Allen’s created the scholarship to assist Charlottesville seniors in achieving their dreams of earning a college degree, and they hope, in particular, to help those students who would be the first in their family to do so. Providing assistance to this first generation will make an important difference for future generations and for the community more broadly.

“For generations, our family has emphasized the importance, and the gift, of education,” Elizabeth Allen said.  “We are excited to help first generation college students in Charlottesville who have worked so hard to continue their journey through college!”

For the graduating class of 2022, the selection committee will choose three students to receive $10,000 annually for up to four years. Payments may be used for tuition, fees, housing, food, books, and other education-related needs.

Applications for the scholarship’s inaugural class will be due to the guidance department at Charlottesville High School by October 1. The scholarship will be administered in accordance with all guidelines and policies established by the Community Foundation’s Governing Board.

Watch Our Catchafire Peer Learning Event

In case you missed it, you can view a recording of the Catchafire Peer Learning event. Hear from Catchafire “super-users” such as Lisa Woolfork and learn how this service can help your nonprofit build capacity. You’ll also learn tips on how to initiate your project, how to interview prospective volunteers, and how to manage multiple projects at once.

View Lisa’s presentation including a video that shows how to post a project in 5 minutes or less.

Learn how Catchafire works and about the impact this program has created for our nonprofit community.

Watch Our Annual Investment Update

At our Annual Investment Update, members of the Community Foundation’s Investment Committee discussed our investment approach and governance, our equity work, and ESG investing, among other topics. Panelists included Kristina Koutrakos, Virginia Retirement System; Alice Handy, founder of Investure; Kristin Henningsen, CornerStone Partners; and Fred Nolde, Investure. James P. Beckett of Wells Fargo Bank presented on our portfolio’s performance over the last fiscal year. Read Beckett’s full bio, view his slides, and learn more about our Investment Committee. Watch the webinar here.

Watch Our Investing for Local Impact Webinar

In this hour-long webinar hosted on April 15, Eboni Bugg leads our nonprofit grant partners in a discussion of the Premier Circle redevelopment project. Those partners include Julie Anderson (Virginia Supportive Housing), Anthony Haro (Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless), Sunshine Mathon (Piedmont Housing Alliance), and Jayson Whitehead (People and Congregations Engaged in Ministry). We talked about the project’s scope, how this work fits in with the issue of affordable housing in our community, and ways that you can help. Watch here.

Our Largest Grant Ever Will Help People Experiencing Homelessness; Public Event on April 15

The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation has made the largest grant in its fifty-four-year history—$4.25 million to Piedmont Housing Alliance to purchase the former Red Carpet Inn on Premier Circle, off Route 29, in Albemarle County.

In this transformational project, Piedmont Housing will collaborate with several housing-centered nonprofit partners—including Virginia Supportive Housing, Thomas Jefferson Coalition for the Homeless, and PACEM—to operate the site as safe, non-congregate emergency shelter while it is redeveloped to create 80 permanent supportive housing apartments and approximately 60 additional affordable apartments. This grant is the first awarded by the Community Foundation’s new program, Investing for Local Impact, which uses creative financial tools to reimagine solutions to our most pressing problems.

A free online public event, April 15 from 12 to 1 p.m., will provide more information on the project and how community members can help. Register here.

“We’re excited to make a deeper impact on the historically intractable problem of homelessness,” Eboni Bugg, the Foundation’s director of programs, said. A 2012 Foundation grant to The Crossings at Fourth and Preston, also developed by Virginia Supportive Housing, helped to significantly cut the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness. Now, the Premier Circle redevelopment seeks to bring that number to zero.

“We have been listening to the community,” Bugg said. “And now we are partnering with area nonprofits to reimagine a hotel into a solution, one that puts the most vulnerable members of our community first.”

Bugg said the partnership evolved from a round of COVID-response grants. Traditional, close-quarter shelters were a health hazard. “The costs of maintaining people in hotel rooms was extremely expensive without providing a long-term solution,” she said. “So we kept talking with our nonprofit partners and realized that we had to invest in a different way.”

The grant, most of which comes from the Foundation’s Community Endowment, is “recoverable,” meaning as each phase of the project is completed, a portion of the funds will be returned to the Foundation in order to be reinvested in future projects. Toward that end, the final phase of the project includes developing the Route 29 frontage as a small subdivided portion of the site for future commercial use.

Housing is a fundamental human right, and its absence is a public-health crisis that negatively impacts all of us. “By standing with our neighbors most in need,” Brennan Gould, the Foundation’s president and CEO, said. “we create a region where everyone can thrive.”

Learn more: 12 Questions about the Collaboration to End Chronic Homelessness

Ryan Jacoby Named Director of Operations

The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation is pleased to announce Ryan Jacoby as its new director of operations. Jacoby will oversee Foundation-wide administration, procedures, and project management, including communications, human resources, and database management.

“Ryan’s leadership, management experience, and passion for our region make him a perfect fit for this new position,” Brennan Gould, president and CEO of the Community Foundation, said. “He has deep ties to the nonprofit community and has been dedicated to helping to improve lives throughout our region. We’re excited to have him on our team.”

Since 2019, Jacoby has served as the deputy director of operations and advancement at Charlottesville’s Center for Nonprofit Excellence, where he also chaired the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering Committee. Prior to that, he was executive director of the PB&J Fund, a principal at Game Changer Consulting, and chief operating officer of Habitat for Humanity of Great Charlottesville.

“As someone long familiar with the work and impact of the Community Foundation,” Jacoby said, “I am thrilled to join the team and help leverage the passion and talents of our staff, Governing Board, and other key stakeholders. Together we’ll ensure that the Foundation’s work continues to empower everyone in our region and gives them the opportunity to thrive.”

A native of Atlanta, Jacoby earned a BS in sports medicine from Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, and a master’s degree in environments and community from Antioch University in Seattle. When not working, he enjoys spending time with family, hiking, reading, spoiling his dogs, and watching professional soccer.

Saying Goodbye to Diamond Walton

We’re sad to share that Diamond Walton has transitioned out of her role with the Community Foundation. Diamond joined our team in January 2020 as a programs manager. She helped to administer the Enriching Communities grant program and then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, grant programs associated with the Community Emergency Response Fund. She and her teammates worked tirelessly on the Community Resource Helpline and later the Community Recovery & Catalyst Grants.

“Our community is so fortunate to have an organization like the Community Foundation, which works diligently not only to elevate community assets but also to help address systemic inequities,” Diamond said. “It has been a privilege to work with such a gifted and committed team.”

Diamond is now working with the Tipping Point Fund on impact investing to support philanthropists as they work to advance the impact-investing sector. We appreciate the invaluable ways she has contributed to the work of the Foundation during some of the most challenging times in our region. We celebrate her new opportunity and wish her the best of luck!

The Ideals We Must Always Strive For

The last few weeks, not to mention the last year, have brought with them crisis and difficulty. We have experienced violence, terror, and loss of life. All the better to take this moment and give thanks to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., born on a rainy January day in 1929. Through his life and his words he constantly reminded us not only of our manifest imperfections as a nation but also the ideals we must always strive for:

A community and a country whose institutions do not divide or discriminate;
Where we invest in one another and where we all have the opportunity to thrive;
Where we seek to better understand our history and to learn from it;
Where we plan for the future with a generosity of spirit; and
Where we work together, pray together, and struggle together with the understanding that when one of us isn’t free, none of us are.

These ideals form the promissory note that Dr. King spoke of in his most famous speech. It’s a check he came to the capital to cash in 1963. That his dream has not yet been entirely realized should not stop us from making it ours.

Murray Rodes Named Interim Director of Finance

We are pleased to welcome Murray Rodes as the Community Foundation’s interim director of finance. Rodes brings a wealth of local experience in accounting, financial management, and investment reporting, having worked with area nonprofits and foundations. He will work closely with Jan Dorman through the end of the year to ensure a smooth and successful transition in advance of Dorman’s retirement.

“We have been so fortunate to have Jan’s leadership and expertise since 2015,” Brennan Gould, the Community Foundation’s president and CEO, said. “We are pleased to have Murray on board now to cary forward the Foundation’s strong fiscal management and stewardship.”

Prior to joining the Community Foundation, Rodes served for five years as the finance manager for St. Anne’s–Belfield, a private school in Charlottesville. Before that he worked for the Blue Moon Fund and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Rodes earned a BA in business administration, magna cum laude, from Bridgewater College, in Bridgewater, Virginia, and an MBA from Virginia Tech.

“I am grateful for this opportunity to serve the Charlottesville community through this role at the Foundation,” Rodes said, “and I look forward to continuing its great success facilitating philanthropy to others.”

When he’s not working, Rodes enjoys spending time with his three daughters, hiking, visiting local breweries, and spending time with his wife, Emily.