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 Dear John,
As the passing days of December bring us towards the end of 2023, we are filled with gratitude. It has been a year of remarkable partnerships and milestones that have supported the expansion of our work in all of our program areas.
We’re particularly proud to have launched new work in Environmental Sustainability focused on the Greater Washington region where our team lives and works. In Leadership Development, the LeaderBridge initiative soared, serving 175 local nonprofit leaders and adding new partnerships and professional development opportunities with Access Coaching Collective, Spur Local, and the Inspire Leadership School to its calendar. While our investment in Women and Girls Leadership and Civic Engagement more than doubled!
In Education, we released a new publication, The Education Imperative - Bridges For Schools Program Guide, which provides actionable steps for how Catholic schools and dioceses can welcome and engage Hispanic families. The Guide complements the national expansion of the Bridges for Schools program, which has served schools in Maryland, Virginia, DC, and through a new partnership with the Connelly Foundation and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, now includes 13 schools in Pennsylvania.
If you’ve worked with Crimsonbridge, you’ve connected with our passionate team members and know they are committed to working alongside our local and national partners to create positive change through innovative partnerships, grantmaking, and communications strategies. From social media posts to presentations at the national conferences of Grantmakers in Education, Exponent Philanthropy, and UBS Philanthropy, Crimsonbridge team members actively promote the work of our nonprofit community partners and programs.
In this final newsletter of the year, we celebrate and share these highlights and others that have made 2023 so special.
Wishing you a holiday season full of joy!
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The Crimsonbridge Foundation team hit the road this fall, sharing knowledge and connecting with funders at three conferences.
Founder & Executive Chair Gabriela Smith was a featured panelist at a national philanthropic investor gathering, highlighting the foundation's work in college success and sharing The College Completion Gap: An Action Guide for Philanthropy.
President & CEO Danielle M. Reyes and Program Officer Robyn Attebury Ellis presented with partners, the Center for First-Generation Student Success and ECMC Foundation to attendees of the Grantmakers for Education Annual Conference in Atlanta. The session titled New Research and Promising Practices: How Philanthropy Can Help First-Gen Learners Thrive shared insights, new research & data, and funding strategies to improve graduation rates of first-generation college students. Program Officer Robyn Ellis was appointed as Co-Chair of the Grantmakers for Education's Postsecondary Access and Attainment Impact Group.
President & CEO Danielle M. Reyes, Senior Program Officer Caitlin Mayo, and Program Officer Robyn Attebury Ellis led a 75-minute session titled Actionable Ways to Support Nonprofit Leaders of Color to funders attending the Exponent Philanthropy Annual Conference in Baltimore. The team presented strategies for funders interested in strategically supporting the leadership development goals of nonprofit leaders of color.
President & CEO Danielle M. Reyes was recognized by two organizations for her leadership in the Greater Washington region. In October, Danielle was named as one of Washington Business Journal's Women Who Mean Business. More recently, Danielle was honored by Spur Local as the Barbara Harman Changemaker in Philanthropy award recipient. Congratulations Danielle!
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Since our founding in 2015, Crimsonbridge has worked with dioceses, universities, nonprofits, and more than 70 Catholic schools to successfully introduce, develop, and implement strategies to welcome and engage Latino students and families. Based on a whole-community approach and building on the collective wisdom of principals, educators, and diocesan staff, we created The Education Imperative – Bridges for Schools Program Guide as a resource for bishops, pastors, diocesan and Catholic education leaders, practitioners, and funders. The Program Guide is an informative and easy-to-use resource that presents actionable steps for catalyzing investments in Spanish and bilingual communications and staffing, parent engagement, cultural competency, and other successful equity and inclusion strategies. The Guide is available as a free download on our website.
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Crimsonbridge Foundation announced $105,000 in grants to eight community partners in the Women and Girls' Leadership and Civic Engagement program sub-area, including: All In Together, Chica Project, Girls on the Run DC, Girls on the Run of Montgomery County, Girls Rock! DC, IGNITE, Running Start, and She Should Run. Since 2018, Crimsonbridge has invested $238,500 in 11 local, regional, and national community-based organizations promoting women's and girls' leadership and civic engagement.
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 The LeaderBridge team hears continual feedback from program alums that interest in leadership and professional development within their organizations is high. However, raising funds to support nonprofit professionals continues to be a challenge. We’ve set out to address this by co-writing a series of articles with our program partners to challenge perceived barriers and highlight opportunities for foundations to invest in community-based leaders. In October, we released the first article with the Georgetown University Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership titled Leadership Development: Challenging Barriers and Highlighting Opportunities for Foundation Investment. Our most recent and second article with Leadership Greater Washington highlights How Partnerships in Leadership Development are Shaping the Future of our Region. “Philanthropy at its best is more than dollars," says President & CEO Danielle M. Reyes. "It is meaningful engagement. Investing in leadership development is an opportunity and an actionable equity strategy for foundations and corporate funders to support leaders and organizations while building a more representative leadership landscape for our region.”
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Bridges for Schools supports schools in welcoming and engaging Hispanic and Latino families by providing funding and guidance to invest in Spanish and bilingual communications, parent engagement strategies, cultural competency, bilingual staffing, and more. This year, the Foundation expanded the program to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in partnership with the Connelly Foundation and served the most schools to date. Since 2018, more than 40 schools in the Archdiocese of Washington, Diocese of Arlington, and Archdiocese of Philadelphia have participated in Bridges for Schools, with nearly 90% participating for more than one year. For the first time, Crimsonbridge presented eight schools with the Award of Distinction in honor of their commitment to fostering a welcoming environment and building capacity to engage Hispanic and Latino students and families. All Award of Distinction schools have actively participated in Bridges for Schools for five years or more.
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ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
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This year, the Crimsonbridge Foundation added a fourth program area, Environmental Sustainability. We made $110,000 in grants to five nonprofit organizations in the Greater Washington region: Casey Trees, City Blossoms, EcoAction Arlington, Nature Forward, and Rock Creek Conservancy. Since the announcement of these grants on Earth Day in April, Crimsonbridge staff have attended various webinars, in-person events and even volunteered with these new community partners. Partners Rock Creek Conservancy and Casey Trees shared recent updates on the Rock Creek Forest Resiliency Framework and a guest blog post on the Nature Near Schools program, while Nature Forward hosted an Advocacy 101 training for community members. We encourage you to visit our partners' websites for volunteer and other opportunities to get involved.
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#Community
Our commitment to participate, engage, listen, and
learn with the communities we support.
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