What's New

Over the past decade, New York state lost 220,000 manufacturing jobs, nearly one in three. While other sectors added jobs in recent years, they don’t come close to providing the family-sustaining wages and health benefits long associated with manufacturing. In addition to being a source of good jobs, manufacturing has a high multiplier impact, contributes to sustainable growth and provides fertile ground for entrepreneurship, technological innovation and productivity improvements.

On Sept 27th, Surdna grantee the Blue Green Alliance (now merged with another grantee, the Apollo Alliance) organized Building the Future, a one-day conference about opportunities to increase regional transit manufacturing opportunities. The event brought together a broad and growing coalition of organizations that encompass perspectives from business, community, environment, education, and labor.  For the first time, these organizations  are working together to advance a job creation and business development manufacturing strategy in New York State.  The event received coverage on the White House and DOT blogs.

Here are some quick facts:

• New York has the largest base of transit-related manufacturing firms in the U.S., and it has significant potential to further expand its transit-related manufacturing capacity.
• The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) operates the largest transit system in the U.S and twenty-five percent of New York City’s construction industry is working on MTA expansion projects to enable the region’s future growth.
• New York State’s current transportation manufacturing base largely results from a conscious effort on the part of both the state and the MTA to encourage in-state production of transit equipment. Over the past 30 years, $80 billion has been invested in the downstate region’s transit rolling stock and infrastructure, helping spur the regional economy.

To build a bright future for New York, the growing coalition of diverse organizations will work together to: (1) develop and implement a mass transit-related economic development strategy that creates jobs and fosters business development in New York State through transportation manufacturing; (2) build a campaign to secure the fullest political commitment from the Governor, the state Legislature, local elected officials and regional economic development councils in support of a transportation manufacturing job and business development strategy; and (3) promote and secure adequate and sustainable funding for the MTA and New York State’s other transit authorities’ capital and operating budgets and for national mass transit infrastructure and advanced manufacturing investments.

Download the white paper above, and click here for the conference program.

 

Surdna's Board met in September to approve 50 grants totaling $7,051,000. These grants support our mission to foster sustainable communities in the United States -- communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, strong local economies, and thriving cultures.

Grants included Support to the New Policy Institute for the Next Economy Partnership Project, which will use public opinion research and collaborative message development in a bottom-up approach to advocating for a more competitive 21st century energy economy; Juma Ventures to support the development and implementation of a national corporate social responsibility platform aimed at creating jobs and educational opportunities for thousands of low-income young adults across the country; Juxtaposition Arts to support the expansion of a comprehensive visual art education and jobs program for urban teens and to further develop business planning expertise to expand the teen-led visual art and design social enterprise: JuxtaLab; and the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning to create an Inidigenous Design and Planning Institute with the mission to inform Indigenous design and planning practice.

 

Click here for the complete list of grants.

With the economy stalled and the jobless rate hovering around 9 percent, it is critical that barriers to commuting be minimized, particularly for households with lower income. More than half a million American households face a daily challenge getting to work or to stores because they have no car and cannot reach their local transit system, according to a report from the Brookings Institution, a Surdna grantee.

The report, Transit Access and Zero-Vehicle Households, released by Brookings’ Metropolitan Policy Program, identifies, for the first time, this highly disadvantaged group and calls on policymakers to improve the transportation choices available to those who most need them.

Transit Access and Zero Vehicle Households is the first in a series of three studies following the release in May of Brookings’ Missed Opportunity report which found that transit services fall far short in connecting workers to jobs. This newest report examines the level of efficacy transit moves workers in households without cars around their metro areas and to places of employment. The next two studies will focus on access to transit from public housing and how transit serves employers’ needs.

The report ranks the 100 largest U.S. metro areas for the number of households with no cars and no access to transit. Atlanta, Dallas and Houston top the list with the lowest coverage rates and do the poorest job serving this population. Together, these metro areas leave more than 100,000 no-vehicle households with few transportation options.

Anchor institutions are entities or facilities that, when established, typically do not relocate because they cannot easily pack up and leave. The most well-known anchors are universities and hospitals (the "eds and meds"), but they may take on different forms such as museums, sports arenas, municipal governments, and in certain instances, major corporations. Typically anchors are the largest employers in a metropolitan area and represent significant economic influence through their procurement of goods and services.

According to Community-Wealth.org, universities spend $350 billion annually and have a total endowment of over $300 billion. Nonprofit hospitals have assets over $600 billion and collect annual revenues greater than $500 billion.[1] If resources of anchors such as these were leveraged effectively, they could produce a multitude of economic multipliers that positively impact the places in which they reside and the city/region as a whole. As a foundation continually seeking innovative ways to strengthen local economies, Surdna sees anchors and the unlocking of their economic power as an important theme worth exploring.

Given the current economic outlook and continued loss of jobs, we are finding more cities and regions looking internally to uncover untapped resources. The question city and state leaders are asking is, "How do we keep more money in our local economy?" Procurement and hiring policies are essential in maximizing the potential in local businesses and, if anchors' policies and resources are aligned correctly, regions could take great advantage of the economic impact. To do this would require a measure of systems and behavioral change on the part of anchors to adopt practices committed to the procurement of goods and services from local businesses, and to the direct employment of residents from nearby communities. An anchor strategy of positioning their buying and hiring practices at this level can help create and sustain home-grown economies, and may be particularly significant for vulnerable regions confronting capital flight and disinvestment.

The Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, made up of small, employee-owned for-profit companies that are based in the communities in which their employees live, attempt to level the city's economic playing field by aligning their services with local universities and hospitals' procurement practices to effectively capture a sustainable percentage of the local market share. They are also pushing for the development of "local first" procurement policies to ensure that local businesses have access to the purchasing power of anchors. Small businesses such as Evergreen have the ability to expose the level of economic resources that continue to flow out of a city while highlighting adaptable strategies for anchor institutions in other cities seeking to support and sustain their own local small enterprises.

Local production, hiring and material sourcing are at the center of Surdna's Strong Local Economies Program's  thinking around how cities and regions can create or revive local economies. As a foundation that seeks to foster just and sustainable communities, we believe that finding ways for anchor institutions to promote and sustain local economies will be an important step in achieving this mission.

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[1] http://www.community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/anchors/index.html

Registration is Open for 2011 SNAAP Administration

Registration for the 2011 Strategic National Arts Alumni Project is open through Friday, July 22, 2011. Any arts degree-granting institution of higher education or arts high school is eligible to participate. Join the dozens of institutions that have already registered, ranging from UCLA School of the Arts to Rhode Island School of Design, from the University of Alaska at Anchorage to the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, an arts high school in Jacksonville, Florida. Surveying will take place this fall.

For more information on SNAAP, its benefits to your institution, pricing and registration form, visit www.snaap.indiana.edu

Findings Released from 2010 SNAAP Survey of 13,500 Arts Alumni

The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project has released its first national report, based on data from the 2010 survey of over 13,500 alumni from 154 institutions nationwide. The findings show that, contrary to widespread belief, most arts graduates are happily employed and satisfied with their careers.

The SNAAP report contains a treasure-trove of information about the educational experiences of arts alumni as well as their career paths. To access the press release: http://snaap.indiana.edu/pdf/SNAAP_Press_Release_050311.pdf. For the report: http://snaap.indiana.edu/pdf/SNAAP_2011_Report.pdf

To view some of the national press that SNAAP received as a result of the report: http://snaap.iub.edu/about/news.cfm

 

Applications are now available for the 2012 Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowships (SATF).  The deadline for applying is November 14, 2011.

The Surdna Foundation invites arts teachers from public arts high schools to apply for funding for artistic development through its Arts Teachers Fellowship Program (SATF). Eligible schools include specialized public arts high schools, as well as arts-focused, magnet and charter high schools. The program offers teachers the opportunity to immerse themselves in their own creative work, interact with other professional artists, and stay current with new practices.

Recognizing that such teachers often lack the time and resources to reconnect with the artistic processes they teach, the Arts Teachers Fellowship Program provides grants of $5,500 to enable selected teachers to make art with professionals in their disciplines and stay current with new practices and resources. A complementary grant of $1,500 is awarded to each Fellow's school to support related post-Fellowship activities.

For more information click here.

The Surdna Foundation announced today that Michelle Knapik has been named as the new Director of its Sustainable Environments Program.  Ms. Knapik will join the Foundation in mid-July, and succeeds Sharon Alpert who now serves as Surdna's Senior Director of Programs and Strategy.

For the past six years Ms. Knapik has been the Environment Program Director at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in New Jersey.  In that role, she developed innovative grantmaking strategies to support sustainable community solutions, in close partnership with grantees, civic and business leaders, and funding colleagues in the region.  While at Dodge, Ms. Knapik also worked closely with the Foundation's  Arts and Culture program, funding projects at the intersection of the environment, culture and New Jersey's creative economy.

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The Surdna Foundation seeks a Program Director for its Thriving Cultures Program. This is an extraordinary opportunity to join a respected and innovative foundation and to advance its mission of fostering just and sustainable communities. Established in 1917 and governed today primarily by fourth and fifth generation family members, the Surdna Foundation has assets of over $800 million and a total annual grantmaking budget of more than $33 million.

The Program Director for Thriving Cultures will lead a $7.5 million grantmaking program, sharpening existing strategies, developing new initiatives, and deepening institutional knowledge to ensure maximum impact of Foundation dollars. Working closely with senior program leadership across the Foundation, the Director will seek out opportunities to connect the Thriving Cultures program to areas of focus within the Foundation’s Sustainable Environments and Strong Local Economies programs.

Click here for full details about the position and information about how to apply.

 

Surdna's Board met in May to approve 99 grants and 16 arts teachers fellowships totaling $12,511,202. These grants support our mission to foster sustainable communities in the United States -- communities guided by principles of social justice and distinguished by healthy environments, strong local economies, and thriving cultures.

 

Grants included support for the American Lung Association's Healthy Air Campaign: an effort to defend the Clean Air Act through a field based campaign that galvanizes the public health community in states across the country; to ISAIAH to support a multi-stakeholder campaign to ensure inclusion and equitable access to transportation, employment, and housing options for low-income communities in Minnesota; To Friends of A Studio in the Woods, based in New Orleans, to support "Changing Landscapes: A Dialogue Between Art and the Environment," a series of eight environmentally-themed artist residencies over the next three years; and the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation to support the Orleans Public Education Network (OPEN), which is working to convene a comprehensive, citywide process for the people of New Orleans to develop a shared vision of excellence and equity for public education.

Click here for the complete list of grants.

The Surdna Foundation, a New York City-based family foundation, seeks a Program Officer for its Strong Local Economies Program.  The Program Officer will report directly to the Program Director for Strong Local Economies. 

The Program Officer will be part of a three-person team led by a Program Director and staffed by a Program Associate.  This position reports directly to the Program Director and has joint supervisory responsibilities for the Program Associate.  The Program Officer works closely with the Program Director on all aspects of the program, including both day-to-day operations and broader program strategy development.

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