Foretelling the Future? A Big Player’s Push for Jobs, Small Business

Oakland, CA, September 28, 2010 -- The push to advance jobs and small business that began two years ago by one of the East Bay’s largest sources of support for worthy causes and needs appears prescient in the wake of local statistics on poverty released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“The numbers released today by the Census Bureau show the impact on the East Bay of our nation’s rising poverty levels, now standing at 43.56 million people, up 3.74 million from 2008,” said Nicole Taylor, President & Chief Executive Officer of the East Bay Community Foundation. “Our strategy adopted two years ago went hand in hand with the release of our own study in July of 2008 -- widely covered by the media -- showing the East Bay was leading the entire metropolitan region in increasing poverty levels, low living-wage job opportunities, decline of housing affordability, and sinking high-school graduation rates.”

The Foundation is one of the largest sources of philanthropic funding for local needs, according to a new study conducted by the Foundation Center, an authority on organized philanthropy worldwide. The Foundation and the approximately 500 individuals, families, corporations and other organizations holding charitable funds under its umbrella together provided more than $27 million in the 2009-10 fiscal year for a variety of causes and needs in Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

According to Taylor, the Foundation’s strategy on economic development and the education that leads to it focuses on helping adults and families develop job skills, get jobs, start or improve their own small businesses, and acquire economic assets, such as their first home. It also focuses on helping young children with the fundamentals of learning – reading and math – so they are successful in the education system and so they have better economic opportunity when they grow up.

Since adopting its economic development strategy approximately 27 months ago, the Foundation has leveraged $4.5 million from its corporate and foundation partners for economic development. During the same period, it has combined its own funds with those of its individual donors for an additional nearly $1.8 million toward the same cause.

“The statistics released today reinforce the necessity for government, business, private foundations, and individual donors to collaborate and to combine their resources in order to create economic opportunity,” said Taylor. “We were pleased last week to see former President Clinton joining the effort by calling on corporations and nonprofit groups to promote economic growth. The most realistic path to results in the fight against poverty is through partnerships and the power of many.”