Markeshia Ricks Photo
Hill, center, at the pitch.
Howard K. Hill often sees families at their most vulnerable hour — when a loved one has passed away.
Those families, particularly African-American ones, often struggle to pay for a funeral because they’re struggling to live through other kinds of hardship.
The prominent funeral home owner is hoping that a new foundation focused on philanthropy can create enough collective wealth in the black community to tackle some of the challenges that create hardship, particularly in the areas of health, education, and economic development.
So he founded The Prosperity Foundation (TPF). Inside a penthouse room at The Study on Chapel Street, Hill Tuesday night pitched African-American business owners and professionals on investing in a charitable foundation that addresses the specific needs of the black community.
“This foundation was started right out of the funeral home, right in my office,” Hill said. “We know that we are building on the existing philanthropy in the black community and we have a good picture of various practice of philanthropy in action.”
New Light High School Principal Larry Conaway, pictured at right, has established three TPF-managed funds.
He said the idea for the foundation was born out of his intimate interactions with families, and the serious health, educational and financial challenges they face. In 2010 he started the Urban Prosperity Fund, and in the last five years, which happen to overlap Hill’s time serving on the board of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, that venture grew into what is now TPF.
Community Foundation for Greater New Haven President and CEO William Ginsberg at left, at the TPF event.
Like a traditional community foundation, TPF is seeking to develop donor-advised funds, educational events, giving circles and other forms of philanthropy that ultimately will be used for grant making to organizations that are specifically targeting black Connecticut.
Hill said the community foundation board is where his ideas about philanthropy have been shaped and where he got the idea for creating a structure for his new foundation. He has enlisted Community Foundation for Greater New Haven to handle back-office financial management of grants, but Hill made it clear that his foundation is an independent one.
“We are our own entity, and that was very, very important to us,” Hill said. “We’re a free people. We’ve been free since 1865. We don’t have to be owned. I felt as though one of the best things we could do is create a structure for us. That the foundation be something that we create, something that we own, something we control and that was very liberating for me.”
In addition to obtaining full tax exempt, non-profit status, TPF has received about $300,000 in seed money from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation through the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
TPF Treasurer Yves Joseph said that money will support the foundation for almost the next two years.
“We’re here to ask you if you want to come join us,” Joseph said. He said specifically the foundation is looking for people interested in helping the foundation grow in three areas: through building an endowment that generates a return that can be re-invested in the community through grants; through establishing owner-directed funds where an individual donor provides the capital for a specific fund and TPF manages the investment; and through giving circles where a group of funders pool their capital to establish a fund that TPF manages.”
JoAnn Price (pictured) — founder of Fairview Capital Partners, a Connecticut-based, woman-led asset management firm, who serves on several boards including the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, the Amistad Center for Art and Culture and the Apollo Theater Foundation — didn’t pull any punches about what it would mean for people to support TPF and for it be a success.
Price served as the night’s keynote speaker. She said it takes a heart for giving, discipline, trust and most of all the support of people willing to write a check.
“I firmly believe that a philanthropist gives from the heart,” she told the assembled Tuesday night. “It has very little to do with how much money you have and everything to do with your heart. Of the people that you interact with, those that are most generous are the people that give from the heart.”
She called the foundation’s work important because it involves sustaining the history and culture of the black community, and she urged those on TPF’s board and future investors “to be careful of what you do and how you do it.”
“We have to support people we can believe in,” she said. “It makes a lot of difference who you support. If the foundation is built wrong it will not succeed. Foundations are all about trust — trust in the people building the organization. You will not want to invest your money with people you feel do not have your best interest at heart. That is what is so exciting about this foundation. You have understood all of the pieces that have to be put in place to insure that things are done correctly.”
David Maurrasse (pictured), founder and president of Marga Incorporated, a consulting firm that is providing staffing for TPM during this developmental phase, said more events like the one held in New Haven will be held all across the state. The next one is scheduled for Stamford on Nov. 17.
“We’re trying to get people connecting with each other specifically around the concept of philanthropy,” he said of the events. “Many people have different ideas and conceptions of philanthropy, and part of what we’re trying to do is leverage philanthropy in a way that addresses the critical needs within the black community.”
Click here to learn more about The Prosperity Foundation.
We already have a Prosperity Foundation.It is call the Black Church.
Where is the $420 Billion in Tithes and Offerings the Black Church has Received Since 1980?
http://www.thisis50.com/profiles/blogs/where-is-the-420-billion-in