The Pierce Family Foundation recently created the Top Talent Institute, a new program designed especially for PFF grantee staff in leadership and top administrative positions. The Top Talent Institute is a part professional development workshop, part peer exchange and support group, part learning circle, and part organizational capacity building.
Does your nonprofit have too many technology needs and no idea what should come first? Our friends at Idealware have created a technology priortization pyramid to help. One important way that Pierce Family Foundation supports the full missions of our Core Grantees to make sure they have all of their technology needs met. Read on for Idealware's vision of how your nonprofit should build its tech infrastructure.
Decades have been spent communicating something that just isn't true: that the most effective nonprofits are those that can somehow magically pull off miracles, with little to no overhead and minimal fixed costs. The Pierce Foundation knows that it takes general op dollars to support real costs. We encourage donors to do more to support general operations. Take a look at this video that our involvement helped The Donors Forum to create. Watch the Donors Forum Video here or click read more.
La Casa Norte was featured on WGN-TV as part of Hispanic Heritage Month in December.
The Resurrection Project was profiled in the New York Times for the opening of its new La Casa Student Housing building. The building, the first of its kind in the nation, offers housing to college students in low-income neighborhoods for whom on-campus housing is too expensive.
We the People Media condcuted a survey of more than 500 Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) residents as part of a report by CHA's Central Advisory Council. This report is a comprehensive effort to put residents' voices at the forefront of CHA transformation efforts.
Our Model
The Pierce Family Foundation’s primary focus is on nonprofits working in housing and homelessness, and helping those nonprofits to build the capacity they need to operate effectively. The Foundation understands the real costs nonprofits face, and so supports “full mission funding,” providing unrestricted general operating dollars for the essentials that keep organizations strong and programs thriving—things like staffing, technology, and fundraising capacity.
We know that nonprofits rarely fail because their programs aren't needed or because their vision is limited; when they fail, it is because they are unable to meet fixed costs or adequately invest in operating essentials. We understand that the greatest challenges faced by nonprofit organizations relate to the lack of support for their organizational development needs. That is why, in addition to providing grants, the Foundation supports capacity building through workshops, peer skill sharing, and nonprofit support specialists that help core grantees with organizational challenges ranging from strategic planning to IT needs to fundraising.
Articles We Like
The Pierce Family Foundation is heavily involved in the "Real Talk about Real Costs" conversation here in Chicago. Turns out that nonprofit overhead is a big topic in the UK, too. In this article from the Guardian, we particularly like the various statements that tested different ways to describe costs. Which statement might resonate with your donors?
Family Giving News, the newsletter for the National Center for Family Philanthropy, recently published an article about Pierce Family Foundation's innovative Peer Skill Share program. Check it out!
Funding addresses the foreclosure crisis and creates affordable housing in the Chicago area
CHICAGO, IL – February 6, 2013 – (RealEstateRama) — Pierce & Associates recently provided a $100,000 charitable donation to further the goals of Mercy Housing Lakefront’s ten-year Moving Forward Together campaign. With this new gift, Denis Pierce, Pierce & Associates, and the Pierce Family Foundation have contributed almost $1.4 million over three years to address the regional housing and foreclosure crisis. Read the full article here.
Pierce Family Foundation
c/o Pierce & Associates
1 N Dearborn, Suite 1300
Chicago, IL 60602
The Pierce Family Foundation supports
nonprofit organizations providing essential
social services in the areas of housing and
opportunities for homeless people.