Money Moves is a semi-regular column tracking grants made by local funders, including foundations, giving circles, trusts and corporate entities. Send notices to philly@generocity.org.

1. The Philadelphia Foundation pledged $1,000 mini “Activate” grants to 43 local orgs.

The funding will turn 43 ideas presented at last November’s annual On the Table Philly, a local multi-partner discussion series, into community improvement initiatives across the city. The recipients were selected out of a total applicant pool of 80 organizations.

“We know the conversations energized people’s thinking around important community issues,” said Pedro Ramos, the president and CEO of The Philadelphia Foundation. “The projects funded through the grants will not only spark positive change, but will be part of a broad network of connections and engagement that has been launched through On the Table Philly.”

Read about the funded projects here. Grant recipients include:

• Urban Affairs Coalition
• Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture
• Germantown Deaf Ministries Fellowship
• I’m Free – Females Re-entering Empowering Each Other
• Norris Square Neighborhood Project
• Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians

.@albustanseeds , @GlobalPhila and @UACoalition are just 3 of the 43 organizations selected to receive On the Table Philly Activate mini-grants from The Philadelphia Foundation. Check out the full list: https://t.co/ib4wMXeBRW #LetsTalkPhilly pic.twitter.com/y1CLko7yV5

From our Partners

— On The Table PHL (@OnTheTablePHL) January 16, 2019

2. Overbrook Educational Center received $150,000 from the Hess Foundation, while Read to Success raked in $170,000.

A K-8 public school serving the city’s largest population of visually impaired and blind students, Overbrook will put its cash to good use by building a sensory playground at 67th Street and Lansdowne Avenue. Play structures will be designed to engage kids’ hearing and sense of touch.

The $170,000 contribution will bolster Read to Success, an annual summer literacy program for kids created by State Sen. Vincent Hughes.

3. The William Penn Foundation chipped in $761,050 to support Health Federation of Philadelphia’s professional development for maternal and child home visiting programs.

WPF’s weighty grant will help HFP’s Training and Organizational Development Department embark on a three-year journey to beef up professional development opportunities and peer learning collaboratives for home visitors and supervisors.

Home visits can improve education and development outcomes for kids experiencing poverty, so the collaborations will build peer networks among home visitors to discuss the best ways to provide and receive support, find community resources and interact across programs.

Family participants of Parent-Child Home Program, a home visiting program in Philadelphia. (Photo by Grace Shallow)

4. Mission Kids Child Advocacy Center can go one step further in thwarting human trafficking, thanks to a $300,000 donation from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency.

January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, and the commission kicked off 2019 by sticking to the theme with its philanthropic giving. The money will help Mission Kids work with partner agencies in the next two years to improve trauma response to trafficking victims while identifying problems in providing safety and other services to survivors.

5. The Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency teamed up to bring $1.5 million to Philly’s homeless services.

The partnership exists thanks to Home4Good, a new statewide funding initiative, and the grant will fund 10 local programs with missions like preventing evictions and helping people with disabilities who are experiencing homelessness. Funds will be distributed by the Office of Homeless Services, which financially backs 10 local orgs’ programs in which people ages 18 to 24 experiencing homelessness first encounter the City’s support services.

Check out the lucky grant recipients:

• Drueding Center — Drueding Rental Assistance Program
• Valley Youth House  
• Turning Points for Children — YVLifeSet
• Utility Emergency Services Fund
• Philadelphia Interfaith Hospitality Network
• Action Wellness – Pathway Home Project
• Friends Rehabilitation Program — Homelessness Prevention and Diversion Program
• SELF/UAC — Homeless and Medically Fragile: Bringing Them Home4Good
• DePaul USA — Keys to Stability
• Families Forward Philadelphia — Shallow Rent Subsidy Program
• Office of Homeless Services — Mobile Assessors

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In other corporate giving news, the Mayor’s Fund for Philadelphia gave $200,000 to programs that help low-income Philadelphians who are working to improve their families’ livelihoods.

Twenty local organizations can expect incoming grants ranging from $2,500 to $20,000:

• Achieve Now
• The African Cultural Alliance of North America
• Career Wardrobe
• Ceiba
• Center for Grieving Children
• Center for Returning Citizens
• Fund for the School District of Philadelphia
• Impact Services
• Mastery Charter School Foundation
• Maternity Care Coalition
• Office of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy
• Office of Homeless Services
• Olney Charter High School
• Operation Warm
• Philadelphia Young Playwrights
• Philly Audio Diaries of CultureTrust Greater Philadelphia
• St. Gabriel OST program
• Team Up Philly
• TeenSHARP
• University Community Collaborative

(Normally, the Mayor’s Fund grants out $300,000 annually, but we can thank a corruption scandal for the 33 percent cutback.)

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Lots of other orgs got funding recently, too:

• Philadelphia Federal Credit Union donated $5,000 total to Depaul USA ($2,500), Make the World Better ($1,500) and Haven Women’s House ($1,000) for its public-vote-based annual giving campaign.
• The Allstate Foundation Good Starts Young contributed $25,000 to the National Liberty Museum’s Young Heroes Outreach program that encourages civic engagement in students in grades 4 to 8.
• Citizens Bank contributed $25,000 to the African American Museum in Philadelphia to support its 2019 MLK Weekend Celebration.
• CHOP, PECO and the Exelon Foundation made a dent of an undisclosed amount in the Science Center’s $3 million fundraising goal to support the center’s FirstHand program.

Science Center’s FirstHand program. (Courtesy photo)