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Innovation

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Presenting our 2019 CIG Recipient – Commonwealth Catholic Charities

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Congratulations to Commonwealth Catholic Charities!

We are thrilled to announce the award of the 2019 Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins Community Innovation Grant of $500,000 to Commonwealth Catholic Charities (CCC) for their Youth Housing Stability Project. 

Focused on ending youth homelessness and housing instability in Richmond communities, Youth Housing Stability Project is a partnership between Commonwealth Catholic Charities, Advocates for Richmond Youth, The United Way of Greater Richmond and Petersburg, and VCU School of Social Work.

“Commonwealth Catholic Charities is committed to ending homelessness across our service area, and we have learned from youth with a lived experience of homelessness about the gap in housing services for this population – we are honored to be a part of this project which has been developed and led by young people,” said Jay Brown, CEO, Commonwealth Catholic Charities. “Our project is another step towards ending youth homelessness and housing instability in Greater Richmond. We are grateful to the Robins Foundation for seeing our vision and we welcome them as a new partner in making it a reality”

“The Youth Housing Stability Project proposal from Commonwealth Catholic Charities perfectly represents the compassionate, giving spirit of our grandparents and we could not be happier with our selection of them today,” said Juliet Shield-Taylor, Chair of the Robins Foundation Board of Directors and granddaughter of the foundation’s founders, for whom the grant is named. “We look forward to working with them toward ending youth homelessness and improving outcomes for kids and families in our region.”

The project will impact the community in three primary ways. First, building a collective network of community resources to support youth will help them avoid the trauma of housing instability or homelessness. Second, it will develop our community’s ability to achieve the benchmarks set by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness which include the ability to identify the often-invisible population of youth experiencing house instability. Finally, it will foster a space where innovative ideas can be incubated and cultivated among providers and youth committed to ending youth housing instability.

“Today is the culmination of a long and thorough process for all the amazing organizations who submitted proposals as well as for the board committee and our staff,” said Kelly Chopus, President and CEO Robins Foundation. “We are thrilled to partner with Commonwealth Catholic Charities, and their collaborating organizations. The Richmond region needs innovative approaches like the Youth Housing Instability Project that have the potential to really change lives.”

About the CIG

The CIG provides a unique opportunity, and a $500,000 award, for Richmond’s non-profits to propose actionable solutions that will have a meaningful and measurable impact on complex issues that our region has been wrestling with for generations, including homelessness, housing instability, education, workforce development and health.

The CIG cycle started in October 2018 with proposal submissions. Organizations were invited to present ideas to the Robins staff and the CEO of the previous CIG winner. Following those presentations, ten non-profit proposals were invited to host site visits to bring their proposals to life. Next, a committee of the Robins Foundation Board will meet the top five to determine the top two finalists. The recipient of the CIG will be announced by Robins Foundation March 5th.

Robins Foundation was established in 1957 by E. Claiborne Robins and Lora M. Robins. The vision of the Foundation is to advance the greater Richmond community through strategic partnerships, collaborations and education, all of which will serve as a model for creating an environment of fairness and opportunity for everyone to thrive. To achieve this vision, Robins continues to conduct and support initiatives that encourage policy shifts, align with peers and nonprofits around community issues, and make investments that cultivate and support innovative solutions.

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Congratulations to the CIG Top 2!

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We are excited to announce the top two organizations for this year’s Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins Community Innovation Grant (CIG): Commonwealth Catholic Charities and Urban Baby Beginnings (Capital Centers of Virginia). Both organizations have proposed innovative initiatives that take a unique approach and use fresh perspectives and visionary creativity to make a lasting impact on the greater Richmond community.

Commonwealth Catholic Charities’ Youth Housing Stability Project is an all-inclusive, young adult-led process and program innovation that addresses the need for a consistent, trauma-informed, youth-centered hub for young people to access a holistic set of resources, connections with peers and adults, and opportunities to contribute to a broader community effort to end youth housing instability. This project will impact the community in three primary ways. First, building a collective network of community resources to support youth will help them avoid the trauma of housing instability or homelessness. Second, it will develop our community’s ability to achieve the benchmarks set by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness which include the ability to identify the often-invisible population of youth experiencing house instability. Finally, it will foster a space where innovative ideas can be incubated and cultivated among providers and youth committed to ending youth housing instability.

Urban Baby Beginnings [UBB] (Capital Centers of Virginia) – Building Successful Outcomes for Maternal and Child Health aims to increase access for Medicaid-eligible and uninsured pregnant women, ages 15-44, to UBB’s community-based care program to improve pre-term birthrates, and maternal and infant mortality rates. Over 1,000 individuals may be directly impacted by this project which also has the potential to impact 50,000 to 100,000 more individuals who will anecdotally share what they have learned with others and continue to create foundations that affect life expectancy tied to healthy lifestyle and the infant trajectory.

“We heard many powerful presentations from organizations working on a variety of community issues and challenges,” said Juliet Shield-Taylor, Chair, Robins Foundation Board of Directors. “We feel Commonwealth Catholic Charities and Urban Baby Beginnings best represent the possibility for transformation that we are hoping to catalyze with this grant. The Robins Foundation is grateful for the courage and willingness of all of our grant applicants to step up and provide ideas for a path forward toward a greater, stronger Richmond for all.”

The 2019 Community Innovation Grant recipient will be announced on Tuesday evening, March 5th. Stay tuned for the big announcement!

About the CIG

The CIG provides a unique opportunity, and a $500,000 award, for Richmond’s non-profits to propose actionable solutions that will have a meaningful and measurable impact on complex issues that our region has been wrestling with for generations, including homelessness, housing instability, education, workforce development and health.

The CIG cycle started in October 2018 with proposal submissions. Organizations were invited to present ideas to the Robins staff and the CEO of the previous CIG winner. Following those presentations, ten non-profit proposals were invited to host site visits to bring their proposals to life. Next, a committee of the Robins Foundation Board will meet the top five to determine the top two finalists. The recipient of the CIG will be announced by Robins Foundation March 5th.

 

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Resolution & Transformation

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Hate has no place in our work.

Many of us have been saddened, confused and angered by recent events highlighting the fractures in our society and community fabric. The fissures created by hate highlight the need for more dialogue and more engagement, not less. We value love, patience, inclusion and teamwork. We value diverse voices and diverse perspectives.

Athlete and sports team protests, Tiki torches, monuments and/or gun violence have ignited more open conversations about racism, bigotry, root causes and possible steps.  These conversations yield opinions of many perspectives and we, as a community stakeholder, appreciate those perspectives. We recognize the impact of history on the movements of today.   Our region (Richmond, Virginia specifically and the South, generally) was the seat of the confederacy and that, segregation in schools, red lining and other past public policies have consequences that have echoed and magnified for generations. Coincidence that we continue to see downward mobility in marginalized communities here? Coincidence we read that particular evidence in grant proposals on the plight of children and families struggling against 39% child poverty in the City of Richmond? Every day, people living in poverty make heartbreaking decisions between affording rent or childcare, food or shelter, safety or healthcare.

Can we do better?

To help combat racism, bigotry and historical root causes, philanthropy in general could and should celebrate and include more voices and more tolerance for doing things differently. Philanthropy could and should begin to address governance in a way to include more of those voices, through outreach to those most impacted by the work and funding. Those we serve should always have voice and a seat at the table. Philanthropy could and should change our funding and decision making processes to include partnerships with smaller, grassroots community organizations on the front lines of change.

We could and should make new efforts to right past wrongs and at the same time provide new pathways toward new learnings. We need new ways of building relationships across previous barriers. We need to talk more to each other. Many voices… many paths forward.

We do not speak for philanthropy as a sector, or philanthropy in the Richmond region, we do speak for the almost six decades of family service and philanthropy on these pages. We pledge to leverage our resources for positive and equitable transformation and against hate and the root causes that divide us now.  We are humbled to announce an enhanced vision and mission, crafted over months of board conversation and retreat.

Our Vision

The Robins Foundation will advance the greater Richmond community through strategic partnerships, collaborations, and education, all of which will serve as a model for creating an environment of opportunity for everyone to thrive.

Our Mission (and our commitment to YOU)

To lead transformational change in the greater Richmond community by listening, learning, and engaging through innovative philanthropy that inspires solutions to society’s greatest challenges.

We are Moved to Share

Our legacy of philanthropy stems from a belief in education and local community. It is the belief that, “education is the solution to the problems in our society – nothing (sic) is more important for success and more important for a happy life than a good education.” (Founder, E.  Claiborne Robins, Sr.)

We have committed to a deeper focus on education with the expectation that a focus on an “education pipeline” could lead to better outcomes and a decrease in some of the poverty indicators vexing this region.

At Robins Foundation, our board and staff aspires to connect equity with transformational change for children and families across our region. We are reflecting on opportunities in our own organization. This includes our governance, our management and our process of funding. This includes raising our awareness and deeper understanding of the past and its influence on dialogues locally and beyond. We recognize that much is expected of and required of philanthropy, and we recognize that many times, we need to change the most.

We will continue to support and bolster our efforts that reverse the outcomes of systemic problems that have set the lives of our region’s youth on a track towards poverty. We will leverage our resources – our grants, our thought leadership, our partnerships, our flexibility, our space, and our appetite for innovative, new ways to solve old problems.  We will use our voice and we will be intentional.  We will tackle poverty by increasing access to opportunities through the organizations we support.  We will use partnerships, innovation and equity as lenses to achieve our vision.

We believe education is the great equalizer. Our work will address social, economic and structural conditions to enhance equitable education outcomes across the region.

We believe in community and the shared experiences and assets from every neighborhood. We believe access, opportunity and expectation help children and families thrive.

Hate has no place in our work. Partnership, innovation and equity do.

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Robins Foundation Awards Five Innovation Grants Totaling $1.2 Million

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RICHMOND, Va., Dec. 8, 2016 – ChildSavers has been named the winner of the third annual Lora M. and E. Claiborne Robins, Sr. Community Innovation Grant by the Robins Foundation for a visionary project designed to help students and teachers in Richmond’s East End schools overcome the impact of childhood trauma.

The $500,000 grant has been awarded to a collaboration conceived and spearheaded by ChildSavers, Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) and Richmond Public Schools (RPS) called the Richmond Public Schools Resiliency Partnership.

The partnership was developed by ChildSavers after an emergency plea from RPS superintendent Dr. Dana Bedden this summer for help in dealing with the increase and impact of violence experienced by children and its deepening effect on children’s school achievement and performance. The project has several components, each of which will influence the lives of nearly 4,500 students in Richmond’s East End through resiliency training and other critical social skills. The grant will support the same training for all school employees and allow in-school clinicians to provide support services to students on site.

“Research tells us that the impact of childhood trauma – whether it be from a single violent episode or years of living in hardship – severely inhibits a child’s growth and wellbeing,” said Juliet Shield-Taylor, Robins Foundation Board Vice President and chair of the selection committee. “This project nurtures children’s innate resiliency by helping them heal and teaching skills for overcoming the profound consequences of trauma. It is exactly the kind of collaboration and innovation that has been a hallmark of the Community Innovation Grant, and we are thrilled to help make it possible.”

The partnership and its pilot program will roll out at Martin Luther King Middle School and expand to the seven schools that feed Armstrong High school. If successful, the program will serve as a model for other schools and districts.

Based in Richmond, ChildSavers provides clinical treatment and education and training services related to the mental wellbeing of children. Greater Richmond SCAN leads Richmond’s Trauma Informed Community Network.

“Too many children in our community experience and witness continuous trauma.  The long-term impact of this exposure results in adverse life outcomes — disruptive behaviors, poor academic performance, incarceration and abuse to self and others,” said L. Robert Bolling, CEO of ChildSavers. “ChildSavers is grateful to the Robins Foundation for its belief that all children deserve the opportunities and access to thrive. We look forward to leveraging the Community Innovation Grant to launch the Richmond Public Schools Resiliency project in early 2017.  We begin this project by asking the question ‘what has happened to this child?’ rather than ‘what is wrong with this child?’ This framework helps to create an environment where traumatized children flourish.  We thank the Robins Foundation for being a partner on the road to resiliency for our children.”

Runner-up Grantee

The Robins board also recognized the MCV Foundation with a grant of $250,000 as the runner-up. Working with the Richmond Police Department, the RVA Alternative Pathways Model proposed a collective impact, multi-agency and organization partnership to reach at-risk-youth before they enter the juvenile justice system or need VCU Health trauma care. The RVA Alternative Pathways Model is a coalition of service providers who will develop, monitor and measure an extensive referral system to prevent youth violence.

This is the third year for the Community Innovation Grant, which was created to inspire innovative solutions and catalytic change to community challenges and issues. The Foundation has received more than 100 applications from nonprofit organizations throughout Greater Richmond. In total five organizations were awarded innovation funding yesterday, catalyzing what the Robins Foundation hopes to be a wave of transformative outcomes for children and families in the coming years. United Methodist Family Services, 50CAN and Virginia Local Initiative Support Corporation each received $160,000.

“The quality of the Top 5 proposals required our response,” said Shield-Taylor.  “The Foundation could not deny the impact each of the initiatives would have on the future of the Richmond community.  With the efforts proposed by each, the children win and the transformation begins.”

For more information about the Robins Foundation, including other grant categories and deadlines, please visit the foundation’s website at www.RobinsFDN.org or the foundation’s Facebook page.