The Boston Foundation: nurturing communities

The Boston Foundation is on a mission to better the community through equity.

Chief Program Officer Orlando Watkins has been in the role for eight years, and talked about how organizations, like the Foundation, have a unique platform and position to support the community at many levels.

“We can stay around issues for a very long time, because we know some of the challenges and opportunities in our community are generational. … It’s this very unique platform that can reach across sectors, different parts of our community, and hopefully bring all of those different voices and ideas together around helping Boston, and the region, be better for everyone and make it a thriving community where opportunity is afforded to all,” he said.

The Foundation remains committed to equity by focusing on four key pathways: child wellbeing, community wealth, economic opportunity and community leadership.

Watkins said that the Foundation has chosen to do their work in these specific areas because they believe that this is where they are uniquely positioned to support the community.

“We have staff who are experts in some of the work in those areas that we are doing. We have research and policy that we’re doing in those areas. So, we selected those areas because we think the Foundation can be most helpful in advancing equity in those key areas,” he said.

These pathways help the Foundation decide on what community organizations and nonprofits that they choose to invest in.

“We center equity in all that we do. We start from listening to [the] community, where the needs are [and] where the foundation can be helpful. We also depend heavily on data. If you look at the data, it says the glaring inequities that exist in our community are happening in communities of color, and so that’s where we are focusing our work. How we do that work is through our nonprofit partners. Working with nonprofits who best understand the needs of those communities that are experiencing the most inequities is really key to how we do our work,” he said.

Watkins also noted that they are not just funding nonprofits led of color just to say they have, but because they believe those lived experiences have real value in achieving the impact that they want to see in the communities they serve.

“The aligned values, the commitment to equity is really important in the nonprofits that we fund and support. If you look at the nonprofits that we support, you’ll see that they have deep groundedness in the communities that they serve…you’ll see a large number of organizations that we fund that talk about their equity and inclusion practice, the representative nature of their boards of directors or their leadership. [It] doesn’t mean we won’t fund organizations led by people who are not of color. That’s not the case at all. But we’re looking for organizations that can really understand the needs of the communities that they are serving, and that’s what’s most important,” he said.

The Banner spoke with members of two community organizations that are being helped through funding from the Boston Foundation. That funding has helped them better serve the community.

Founder and Executive Director Toy Burton created her organization of DeeDee’s Cry after her sister, Denita Shayne Morris (DeeDee), who committed suicide at the age of 23.

After trying to help a friend who also lost her sibling to suicide in 2017, and realizing that the agencies that focused on suicide prevention did not focus on communities of color, Burton decided to create DeeDee’s Cry, as she understood the need for support — especially being a suicide attempt survivor herself.

Burton said the investment from The Boston Foundation has been very helpful, as they were a sponsor of their Mental Health While Black Summit this year.

She says that she first connected with the Foundation three years ago, when they applied for one of their safety net grants.

Burton said that the funds will help her to streamline her organization’s day to day operations and she plans to purchase software that will help her to better track the families they support dealing with the loss of loved ones due to suicide, measure the impact of their work, and help with the actual support of families.

Another organization that The Boston Foundation has partnered with is Arka HR Solutions, the only Latina owned and led Human Resources organization in the Northeast.

They provide a variety of services to mid-sized businesses: hiring and recruitment and boarding performance management, training and development benefits, employee relations of boarding compensation, analysis, and cultural engagements.

Founders Marcela Aldaz-Matos and Andreina Viera Silva said they connected with the Foundation last year, as they had a significant need for capital.

“For women of color, mainly Latinas, like us, with an accent, being brown, not being from this country, who encounter endless barriers as it relates to accessing capital, resources…you name it, but fortunately, we had a great resource,” Aldaz-Matos said.

As a result of the Foundation’s loan, Aldaz-Matos said that they have been able to support and fuel the growth of their organization in a number of areas, from their operations to creating the teams they needed, and to being able to invest in marketing operations.

“Because of the loan we received, we were able to expand our team, which, in return, has definitely helped us grow. One example is we were able to hire a grant writer, and the grant writer, would you know, throughout her job, she was able to help us secure a significant grant from a local…organization, and so that goes to show how important it is to be able to invest in the right team, so that we’re able to have the right infrastructure so that then we can help in return other organizations,” Viera Silva said.

“It’s important that as minority women, we’re able to navigate these barriers, understand these barriers, so that then in return, we can help other minority women, other small businesses do the same. So I think what The Boston Foundation did was provide Arka HR … with the resources it needed, not only for Arka HR, but also for all the other women that are going to see the support through what this loan has done for us and it could trickle down to them,” Viera Silva added.