Community Funds

The New York Community Trust (the Trust) is the fourth largest community foundation in the country. Created to ensure that New York area citizens have a means for providing long-term support for their community, the Trust typically pools donations in collaborative or donor funds. Community Funds is the entity through which the New York Community Trust conducts its operations. This grant renews support for a donor collaborative at the New York Community Trust to support activities of the New York Hive Learning Network, a network of civic, cultural, and other youth-serving institutions committed to re-imagining how learning is organized and sustained to meet the needs of youth growing up in the digital age. This grant is the final MacArthur contribution to the New York Hive Digital Media and Learning Fund, and it is intended to help ensure a smooth transition for the Fund and the Hive community as MacArthur brings its grantmaking to a close. 

The New York Community Trust (the Trust) is the fourth largest community foundation in the country. Created to ensure that New York area citizens have a means for providing long-term support for their community, the Trust typically pools donations in collaborative or donor funds. The proposed grant is a renewal of support for a donor collaborative at the New York Community Trust to support activities of the New York Hive Learning Network, a network of civic, cultural, and other youth-serving institutions committed to reimagining how learning experiences are organized and supported to meet the needs of youth growing up in the digital age.

The New York Community Trust ensures that citizens have a means for providing long-term support for important civic endeavors in their communities. This grant renews support for its Community Funds operations, which support activities of the New York Hive Learning Network: developing activities for youth; carrying out professional development for Hive educators; and testing learning innovations based on Connected Learning. It will oversee the re-granting of funds to Hive member organizations; cultivate new donors in support of the Hive funds; and, in collaboration with Hive staff, raise awareness of the Hive Learning Network and Connected Learning among key local stakeholders.

These two grants--this and one made to Chicago Community Foundation--renew support for donor-advised funds at the New York and Chicago Community Trusts to fund activities of the Hive Learning Network in the two cities. The Hive networks are communities of civic and cultural institutions dedicated to transforming the learning landscape, and creating opportunities for youth to explore their interests in virtual and physical spaces. These grants provide an additional year of support for the Hive networks, with resources to develop activities for youth, to carry out professional development for Hive educators, and to strengthen the Hive Networks as sites for testing innovations in learning.

These grants will be used to expand resources at the Smart Fund at the Chicago Community Trust and at a similar fund for the New Youth City Learning Network at the New York Community Trust, which were established to support the collaborative activities of the members of Chicago and New York learning networks a centerpiece of the Foundation’s digital media and learning initiative. The grants will provide resources for the networks for collaborative projects among participating civic and cultural institutions and to provide learning opportunities for more young people in the two cities. (Grant for this purpose also made to Chicago Community Foundation #99456-0).