Find Funding: Give Local 757 Is the Largest Fundraising Event in Hampton Roads

On May 3, 2016 everyone can be a philanthropist making life better for Hampton Roads citizens.

The third annual Give Local 757 is an opportunity to educate the public on the many critical nonprofit programs in southeastern Virginia. Give Local 757 also brings the joy of giving and the spirit of philanthropy to a wider audience. The event is sponsored by many area foundations and businesses.

Started in 2014, Give Local 757 is a 24-hour give-a-thon that already is the single largest fundraiser in Hampton Roads history.

·         2014 - $190,000 raised for 107 area nonprofits in just 24 hours

·         2015 - $430,000 raised  for 155 area nonprofits in just 24 hours

·         2016 - $1 million is our goal for more than 200 area nonprofits!

      When? 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, May 3, 2016 until 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, May 3, 2016.

How can my nonprofit participate? If you work with a 501(c)3 nonprofit that provides services in the 757 area code, your organization be part of the giving day. Although you can sign up until mid-April, the sooner you do that the better since this will give you time to use training resources and create a plan for success. Sponsors are providing about 50 different cash prizes your organization could win to augment the donations you receive.

 Register here.

Once registered, be sure to take full advantage of the Give Local 757  NonprofitToolkit, which includes planning tools, graphics, marketing material templates and training dates.

Questions? Contact Tammy Flynn, director of philanthropy with the Peninsula Community Foundation, at (757) 327.0862 or tflynn@pcfvirginia.org.

Donors Honor Parents With Dazzling Chrysler Chandelier

The Valones admire the sculpture with artist Luke Jerram (right)

Dr. James and Christiane Valone of Norfolk found a special way to honor their parents and give a gift their whole community can enjoy. When the Chrysler Museum of Art reopens on May 10 a spectacular part of it will be the 17-foot kinetic chandelier dangling down the museum's spiral staircase. Click here to watch a 59-second video created by the artist.

It is typical to honor people with "things cast in bronze or engraved in granite," Jim Valone says. But he and Christiane went a modern route with a piece of functional art made from glass, wire and microchips. A grant from the Valones' donor-advised fund at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation paid for the chandelier whose clear orbs have insides that spin when exposed to light. If you pause at the stairwell and are quiet, your ears will be treated to a gentle fluttering sound emitted by the moving parts. Renowned British artist Luke Jerram created what he calls The Chrysler Chandelier from 330 glass radiometers. Tiny microchips hang next to each globe and produce enough infrared energy to make the spindles and vanes inside the glass orbs rotate.

"This is the first chandelier I've made that is powered by Infra red LEDS rather than sunlight," Jerram says. "What's interesting is that you can see the (invisible to the naked eye infrared light) only when you view the chandelier through your mobile phone."

 William Hennessey, Chrysler Museum executive director, remembers being fascinated when the sun made a radiometer on his window sill whir when he was a boy. "Radiometers have a great gee whiz factor," he says.

"The chandelier was commissioned for this very spot," Hennessey says. "We had a leading artist create something that will delight people from ages 5 to 85."

After nearly a year of work the 66-pound chandelier, which requires no electricity, was installed the other week. It bridges the museum's new upstairs modern art gallery with the ground floor where kids and families gather. Both the Chrysler's children's gallery and the

hands-on Hampton Roads Community Foundation Education Center are at the bottom of the winding staircase.

Christiane Valone is a long-time docent at the Chrysler Museum, which has been closed for more than a year for major renovations. She and her husband both love art and the Chrysler. The grant they recommended through their Hampton Roads Community Foundation fund honors all four of their parents who taught them to appreciate art and philanthropy: Denise Gabrielle Jacot des Combes and Leslie Ellis, who live in Great Britain, and Ethel Morrison Fielder of Raleigh and the late James Valone.

The Valones believe it is important for all young people to come face to face with art and develop a fascination with it. They look forward to the spinning chandelier encouraging families and young people to come and enjoy the Chrysler. Learn more from the Chrysler Museum of Art about the chandelier.
Read the April 10 Virginian-Pilot story by Teresa Annas about the chandelier.
Watch a 59-second video created by artist Luke Jerram and see his creation in action.

(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is among nearly 750 community foundation around the country serving specific geographic regions. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org. You can click here to locate a community foundation near you. )
 

Photo by Gary Marshall courtesy of the Chrysler Museum of Art

How Can I Help People Go to College and Succeed in Life?

To give the gift of education, you can be like Fannie Royster Cooke and her husband Richard Cooke. You can endow a scholarship at your area community foundation and have it last forever. There are more than 700 community foundations serving specific geographic areas in the United States. Your thoughtfulness will help people forever.

In 1951 the Cookes, who were long-time Norfolk, Virginia residents, created the first fund

Fannie Royster Cooke

at the Hampton Roads Community Foundation, which was founded in 1950 as Virginia's first community foundation. The Cookes' goal was to honor their two adult sons and to help send southeastern Virginia students to Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond.

Sixty-three years later, the Richard Dickson Cooke and Sheppard Royster Cooke scholarship is alive and well. Hampton resident John C. McClure is the latest in a long line of Cooke Scholars being helped long after Fannie, Richard and their sons have passed away.

The Cooke Scholarship is one  of more than 60 endowed scholarship funds administered by the Hampton Roads Community Foundation -- most for undergraduate education. During the 2013-14 academic year there are 358 students receiving more than $1 million from endowed scholarship funds.

Each scholarship fund reflects the unique interests of the donors who started it. Some scholarships are for specific fields of study such as architecture or education. Others are for graduates of specific high schools such as Ocean Lakes High in Virginia Beach or Maury High in Norfolk. And, some scholarships are for students attending specific colleges and universities such as the University of Virginia or Hampden-Sydney College. 

Since 1951 more than 3,900 individuals have received more than $18 million in Hampton Roads Community Foundation scholarships. Most of them have been a scholarship recipient for up to four years of study.

Tomorrow, February 28, is the application deadline for students to apply for 2014-15 Hampton Roads Community Foundation scholarships. This year there are eight new scholarship funds available because caring donors last year entrusted the Hampton Roads Community Foundation to forever help students in their names. Learn more.

Scholarship application season is an occasion to pause and say thank you to the generous donors who make education a reality for so many students.  

 (The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org.)

Philanthropist to Help Future Generations Nurture The Environment

Jane Batten is a Hampton Roads philanthropist, mother and grandmother who loves

The Learning Barge gets kids on the water.

children and preserving the environment. For Batten, helping kids become adults committed to caring for the world around them "makes good sense."
That's why Batten recently made the Elizabeth River Project the latest Batten Endowment Challenge grant recipient. The environmental group was announced in January 2014 as the eighth area nonprofit to benefit from the Hampton Roads Community Foundation program that gives organizations $1 million endowments and then challenges them to double that amount. This is the Elizabeth River Project's first permanent endowment fund.

Here is how the latest Batten Endowment Challenge works for the Elizabeth River Project:

 *A $1 million grant from the Batten Educational Achievement Fund has created an endowment fund for Elizabeth River Project at the Hampton Roads CommunityFoundation.

Jane and Frank Batten

The grant came from a donor-advised fund Jane and her late husband Frank started in 2003 at the community foundation with a $20.3 million gift.  

*Jane Batten has challenged the Elizabeth River Project to raise within five years another $500,000 from additional donors. She will match every dollar donated up to $500,000 -- essentially doubling the Elizabeth River Project's endowment.

"I'm impressed by the way the Elizabeth River Project is getting industries to be its partners," Batten says. She also likes its innovative programs that are helping create "a generation of children who go home and talk to their parents who may not have thought much about the environment."

Each year the Elizabeth River Project works with more than 30,000 area students -- from preschoolers to high school seniors. Programs are held on its learning barge parked in area waterways, in classrooms and in the new Paradise Creek Nature Park in Portsmouth. In addition 150 area schools are River Star Schools where teachers involve students in hands-on environmental projects each year.

For Marjorie Mayfield Jackson, executive director of the Elizabeth River Project, the new endowment and its challenge mean "stability" and that the organization she founded 21 years ago to restore the tainted Elizabeth River is "maturing."

The endowment will initially provide the Elizabeth River Project annual grants from the community foundation of 4.5 percent of the fund's value -- $45,000 the first year. As the endowment grows, the amount of grants coming to the environmental group each year will increase.

"When you have major urban rivers used and abused for years, you need dollars to stretch as far as you can," Jackson says. The new endowment will help Elizabeth River Project expand its efforts to once again make area rivers safe for swimming and fishing.

Donations to the Batten Endowment Challenge should go directly to the Elizabeth River Project by:

• Sending a check to the Elizabeth River Project earmarked for the Batten Endowment Challenge. Mail it to 475 Water Street, Suite 103A, Portsmouth, VA 23704.
• Clicking here to donate online to the Elizabeth River Project's Batten Endowment Challenge.
• Calling the Elizabeth River Project at (757) 399-7487 to talk about other ways you can support the endowment challenge.

(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org.)
 

How Can I Continue to Support My Favorite Causes After I Die?

William Goldback supports arts & education forever.

Like many people, you likely have special charitable causes you care about and routinely support through donations to nonprofits working in key areas.

Enhancing the arts, helping unwanted animals find homes, improving the environment, supporting education, helping homeless people get back on their feet .... the list of good causes relying on your charitable gifts is endless.

Have you ever thought about what the causes you support will do when you pass away?

Your generosity doesn't have to end with your death. One way to continue helping your favorite causes forever is through your area community foundation. In North America there are more than 700 of these charitable foundations built by donors from all walks of life. Each underpin in specific geographic areas good causes and the nonprofits involved with them. With one simple charitable gift made through a bequest in your will or other estate plans, you can help your favorite causes long after you are gone.

Perhaps you could be like the donors doing good works forever through the Hampton Roads Community Foundation -- the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia. Here is a sampling of them:


• William Goldback, a Norfolk businessman who loved going to concerts and plays and valued good health. He donated regularly to organizations working in these areas. Even though Bill died in 2007, today the field-of-interest fund he started at the community foundation through a bequest provides grants to nonprofits working in his areas of interest -- performing arts and  medical services, education or research that help people in Hampton Roads live healthier lives.
• H. Lee Kanter, a Virginia Beach attorney and founder of the Farm Fresh grocery

  

  Lee Kanter is 'Bravoman'

  chain, put a provision in his will to start after his death two field-of-interest endowments for the performing arts. Although he passed away in 2001, his grants through the community foundation still help organizations bring music, dance and theater performances to his home region. We like to think this man, whose son nicknamed him "Bravoman" for being the first to leap to his feet after arts performances, is still leading the ovations every time a  grant goes out in his name.



Perry & Bunny Morgan
will help others forever.

• Peggy and Bunny Morgan, a Virginia Beach couple who passed away in the 1990s, live on today through unrestricted and field-of-interest funds entrusted to the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. Perry was a sharecropper's son who went to college on the G.I. bill, which changed his life and propelled him to a career as a newspaper publisher. A bequest from his estate created permanent charitable funds that reflect his interests by supporting scholarships for area college students and grants to human service and arts organizations in Hampton Roads.

All of these forward-thinking donors to the Hampton Roads Community Foundation live forever through the bequests they put in their wills to support their favorite causes. Through the power of endowment the amounts of grants going out in their names continue to increase as their funds rise in value.

To learn how you can create a permanent fund through the Hampton Roads Community Foundation click here. To learn more about this community foundation and its good works it does in southeastern Virginia on behalf of its donors click here.

Click here for a Council on Foundations map that will help you locate the community foundation nearest you.

(The Hampton Roads Community Foundation is a regional community foundation started in 1950 as the first community foundation in Virginia. It is the largest grant and scholarship provider in southeastern Virginia and manages more than 400 charitable funds created by donors from all walks of life. Over the decades it has provided more than $195 million to improve life for residents living in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia, including the cities of Chesapeake, Franklin, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, Suffolk and Virginia Beach. It also serves people in Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, including Accomack and Northampton counties. Learn more at hamptonroadscf.org.)