By Sabrina Vourvoulias

1. JP Morgan Chase awards $1.5 million for expansion of UCD’s skills initiative.

JPMorgan Chase & Co announced it will be investing $1.5 million over two years with University City District (UCD) to help expand job training now only available to West Philadelphians through UCD’s West Philadelphia Skills Initiative (WPSI). WPSI — which began in 2011 to help bridge the gap between West Philadelphia residents seeking employment and local employers looking for talent — operates like a talent management consultancy. Through deep employer engagement, it connect jobseekers to careers with growth opportunities while helping employers improve recruitment, turnover and performance.

The funding from JPMC will allow the program to scale the model and expand to North and South Philadelphia, in partnership with Temple University and the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC).

“The remarkable support from JP Morgan Chase allows University City District to expand a proven model that transforms lives and workplaces,” said Matt Bergheiser, president of UCD. “Together with incredible partners we will engage employers and build job training pipelines that lead to life-changing careers.”

2. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia receives $750K TD Ready Challenge Grant.

Alonzo South, senior director of community engagement at CHOP, at the announcement of the $750,000 grant in support of the hospital’s GRIT program. (Courtesy photo)

TD recently announced that Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia was one of four recipients of the second annual TD Ready Challenge, and will each receive a $750,000 grant in support of its Growing Resilience in Teens (GRIT) project. GRIT aims to proactively address trauma for high-risk adolescents and prevent mental illness, and will use the grant money to improve the health of vulnerable children and families through clinic-based screening for exposure to violence and trauma, referring families to community-based organizations and assigning community health workers to strengthen and build family engagement. The initiative aims to demonstrate efficacy of the model and document best practices to lead to further expansion to other U.S. cities with high incidences of traumatic events.

The other U.S.-based organizations that have been recognized as pioneering programs aimed at improving access to early detection of disease and disease intervention and having a significant impact on the local communities in which they operate are the Fund for Public Health in New York City, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, and Baystate Health Foundation/Baystate Health in Massachusetts.

“The 2018 TD Ready Challenge winners have already had an amazing impact on their communities, showing us that this funding can truly make a difference,” said Shelley Sylva, U.S. head of social impact, TD. “We are confident that the four 2019 TD Ready Challenge winners in the U.S. will measurably improve the quality of healthcare access, research and preventive care for those traditionally underserved in our communities.”

3. GSK awards $400K to nonprofits making an IMPACT on health outcomes.

Representatives of GSK and the 10 2019 Impact Award-winning organizations. (Photograph by Alan Brian Nilsen)

GSK accorded IMPACT Awards to 10 local nonprofits that offer youth mentoring, housing, legal aid, education and other critical services. The Philadelphia regional winners were selected by a panel led by Philadelphia Foundation and consisting of GSK employees as well as local and national community health experts.

Each of the winning organizations will receive $40,000 to help further their efforts to improve health in the region. The awards are unrestricted, so nonprofits may use them for any purpose furthering their work. The 10 organizations are:

• After School Activities Partnerships
• Bartram’s Garden
• Coded by Kids
• Esperanza Housing and Economic Development
• Family Service of Chester County
• Girls Inc. of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey
• Homeless Advocacy Project
• Housing Partnership of Chester County
• Legal Clinic for the Disabled
• Philadelphia Youth Basketball

“These innovative organizations contribute to improving health outcomes for so many people in our region,” said Kirk Brown, GSK vice president for biopharm & steriles manufacturing and a member of the GSK committee that governs charitable investments in the US. “We’re pleased to honor these exemplary nonprofits and support work that makes a difference for people and communities across the Philadelphia region far into the future.”

4. American Airlines invests $125K to break the cycle of poverty.

American Airlines partnered with the City of Philadelphia and Philabundance to allocated $125,000 to programs grappling with the root causes of poverty. (Courtesy photo)

American Airlines recently launched a new $125,000 initiative with Mayor Jim Kenney, the National Service Year Task Force and the region’s largest hunger relief organization, Philabundance, to address the root causes of poverty.

American committed $75,000 to the Philadelphia Office of Civic Engagement and Volunteer Service, which oversees more than 2,500 members serving in almost 30 programs annually, including City Year, PowerCorpsPHL and AmeriCorps VISTA. The investment will be used to create a new fund that helps improve access to Philadelphia-based service year opportunities, provide greater financial stability for those involved and create career pipelines as participants graduate and seek employment.

American is investing an additional $50,000 in Philabundance to support programs that pair nourishment with other training, resources and tools to help individuals and families realize long-term stability. The funding deepens American’s partnership with Philabundance and expands their efforts to end hunger for good through their Community Kitchen vocational training and Connectors collaborative “food plus” partnership programs.

“We recognize that our future growth and long-term success are directly linked to the growth and prosperity of the community where we all live and work,” said Jim Moses, vice president of hub operations at PHL. “That’s why American Airlines and our nearly 10,000 local team members have chosen to make smart investments in partnerships that are creating stability, supporting a job-ready workforce and improving outcomes for all Philadelphians.”

5. Bread & Roses Fund grants $160K to 16 groups advancing gender justice.

The 18 members of Bread & Roses’ 2019 Gender Justice Giving Project raised money from 235 people to award the $160,000 in grants. (Courtesy photo)

Bread & Roses Community Fund awarded $160,000 in grants to 16 groups in the region advancing gender justice. All of the grant money was raised by the 18 volunteer members of the 2019 Gender Justice Giving Project. The Gender Justice Fund is a special fund at Bread & Roses that supports grassroots organizing to mobilize women, girls, transgender, and gender-nonconforming people to make change.

The grantees are:

• African Family Health Organization provides culturally and linguistically sensitive health, human, and educational services to African and Caribbean immigrants and refugees and organizes to end female genital mutilation.
• Black and Brown Workers Cooperative works to empower Black and Brown workers organizing to resist gentrification and expand labor rights.
• Comadre Luna Collective cultivates safe spaces of collective care among immigrant Latinx women of mixed status to empower them to make decisions about their bodies and life without fear and supports access to reproductive justice in Philadelphia.
• Educators for Consent Culture is working to disrupt rape culture in Philadelphia schools through education and engagement of young people and adults to foster a culture of consent.
• Girls Rock Philly is challenging patriarchy by empowering girls, trans youth, and gender-nonconforming youth by using music to promote gender justice.
• Juntos works to improve the wellness of immigrants, people of color, and poor people by addressing domestic violence, providing resources for deportation and immigration, and organizing around immigration policy change.
• Pennsylvania Domestic Workers Alliance is a group of women and gender-nonconforming low-wage workers, most of whom are people of color and immigrants, organizing to demand rights for domestic workers and pass the Philadelphia Domestic Worker Bill of Rights.
• Pennsylvania Student Power Network is building a youth-driven movement working to demand transparency around violence, accommodations for survivors, and protections for trans and gender-nonconforming students in Pennsylvania.
• People’s Paper Co-op, an ongoing initiative by the Village of Arts and Humanities, connects formerly incarcerated women together with artists, civil rights lawyers, and policy makers to transform the narrative of reentry and end the cash bail system.
• Philadelphia Community Bail Fund is a grassroots, community-led bail fund whose mission is to end cash bail and pretrial detention and post bail for Philadelphians who cannot afford it.
• Philly Thrive is driving a campaign against the Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery in Philadelphia, which continues to pollute working-class Black communities. They are creating a women’s circle to provide healing for women in the community during their campaign.
• Sappho and LaRoyce Foundation creates a space where LGBTQ people and people of color can talk about their experiences and work on a campaign to change language in laws governing domestic violence in Pennsylvania to include same-sex couples and gender-nonconforming people.
• Sisterly LOVE, a program of the Mazzoni Center run for and by trans women, provides members with leadership development and skill-building training. They aim to increase the capacity of trans women to organize and advocate around issues affecting their communities.
• The Womanist Working Collective is a collective of Black women and gender-nonconforming folks who are building participatory grassroots solutions to problems in their communities and working for social equality and environmental justice.
• Women’s Community Revitalization Project is working to change the housing crisis experienced by working-class women and their families by building their leadership, engaging their households, and advocating for policy change.
• Women’s Medical Fund is organizing to expand abortion access for individuals with low incomes through direct service and community organizing, working to support people who need abortions as well as lift insurance bans and eliminate barriers.

And, a money move we somehow overlooked in early October:

6. Citizens Bank invests $75K in Regional Maritime Training Center.

Local leaders, including Mayor Jim Kenney (far left) came together for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the official opening of the Citizens Bank Regional Maritime Training Center. (Courtesy photo)

Mayor Jim Kenney and Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon joined representatives from Citizens Bank, the Collegiate Consortium for Workforce and Economic Development, PhilaPort, and Philadelphia Works to celebrate the official opening of the Citizens Bank Regional Maritime Training Center, and to announce a $75,000 investment to expand training opportunities for maritime industry personnel.

Last year, Citizens Bank invested $100,000 to help create the center in Southwest Philadelphia. The additional $75,000 will fund additional immersive classroom, simulator-based and hands-on learning opportunities designed to improve safety, efficiency and productivity.

The Collegiate Consortium for Workforce and Economic Development, which includes Bucks County Community College, Camden County College, Community College of Philadelphia, Delaware County Community College, Montgomery County Community College and Drexel University, developed the curriculum for the training center. Among other things, the training provides workers with the opportunity to become certified or recertified in operating motorized equipment routinely used in and around the port.