Charitable Foundation Commits Millions to NH Kids

NH Charitable Foundation President Richard Ober announces a $100 million initiative to help NH kids. Photo Credit: Courtesy.

The NH Charitable Foundation is committing $100 million over 10 years to “New Hampshire Tomorrow”, a comprehensive partnership bringing together hundreds of organizations and businesses toward a single goal: increasing opportunities so that young people can reach their potential and be ready to contribute to NH’s communities and workforce.

The Foundation will make high-impact strategic grants, build and support multi-sector coalitions, and advance sensible public policy to achieve the goals of New Hampshire Tomorrow. The work is guided by a leadership council of 27 prominent Granite Staters.

“New Hampshire needs all of our kids to have the chance to thrive in career and community,” says Foundation President Richard Ober. “But right now, only some get that chance. New Hampshire Tomorrow will help turn that around.”

Ober says that too many young people in NH face a stark opportunity gap that hinders their ability to reach their full potential. Many kids from low-income families have less access to preschool, sports and other enrichment activities, adult mentors, advanced placement courses, and affordable postsecondary education. As a result, they tend to fare worse academically, are less likely to go to college, and less able to get good jobs.

“That is just unfair,” Ober says. “It also doesn’t make sense economically as our businesses struggle to find qualified young people to fill high-paying jobs. As our population ages and in-migration slows, we have to give more kids the opportunity to thrive. It is both a social obligation and an economic imperative.”

New Hampshire Tomorrow aims to narrow the opportunity gap with strategic investments in four proven focus areas: early childhood development, family and youth supports, preventing and treating alcohol and drug use, and creating affordable pathways from education to careers. Each area of investment aligns with work being done by the public sector, nonprofits, education and the business sector. The Foundation is working to multiply funds with additional resources from local and national partners.

Dianne Mercier, president of People’s United Bank, is a member of the New Hampshire Tomorrow Leadership Council. “The New Hampshire Tomorrow initiative lays out a continuum of support that will give New Hampshire’s kids the opportunities they need to grow and learn, and eventually be able to engage in meaningful and rewarding work and contribute to New Hampshire communities,” Mercier says.

The Leadership Council also includes John Lynch, former NH Governor; Sylvia Larsen, former NH Senate president; Steve Duprey, real estate developer and Republican National Committee member; The Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld, bishop of the Episcopal Church of NH; Dr. Ross Gittell, chancellor of the Community College System of NH;  J. Bonnie Newman, former president of the University of NH, who also served as chief of staff for former Congressman Judd Gregg; and Jeremy Hitchcock, founder and board member of Dyn.

“The New Hampshire Advantage as we know it is dead,” Hitchcock says. “There are new structural advantages that we must learn to harness for continued economic prosperity over the next 25 to 50 years. New Hampshire Tomorrow is the only comprehensive effort looking at statewide issues with a lens longer than two years.”

The Foundation has long been committed to effective action for the next generation. New Hampshire Tomorrow redoubles those efforts.

The Foundation awarded more than $11 million to New Hampshire Tomorrow-related efforts in 2015 and expects to award a similar amount in 2016. Examples of 2015-2016 investments:

• $125,000 to family resource centers to provide parenting classes, home visiting and developmental screening for young children;
• $90,000 to Southern NH Services to improve the quality of up to 30 early childhood development centers serving low-income kids through training and technical assistance;
• $128,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of NH, which provides kids with adult  mentors to help them succeed;
• $295,000 to Families in Transition, which provides transitional housing and a range of other family support services;
• $1.2 million to implement evidence-based screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment protocol to address youth substance use in medical practices;
• $2.8 million to youth substance use prevention programs, including Life of an Athlete, Media Power Youth, Partnership for a Drug Free NH and Youth Leadership Through Adventure;
• $5.5 million in scholarships in 2015, including $1.2 million to students pursuing fields in high demand by NH employers;
• $235,000 to strengthen education-to-career pathways in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from high schools to community colleges to four-year colleges to high-demand careers in NH.

“New Hampshire has always enjoyed a high quality of life, but that is based on averages,” Ober says. “Too many families and young people have slipped through the cracks.”

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 11 percent of kids in NH (or 28,000) are living in poverty, up from 6 percent in 2000. (Under federal guidelines, a family of four with an income of $24,250 is considered to be in poverty.) And pockets of poverty are growing deeper. Twenty-eight percent of NH, or 46,700, are eligible for free and reduced-price school lunch—a reliable measure of poverty. In some NH cities and districts, more than half of all kids qualify. And our kids face other challenges: New Hampshire’s young people have among the highest rates of substance use in the country and our students graduate with the highest debt load in the nation.

More information on New Hampshire Tomorrow is available at www.nhcf.org/nhtomorrow.

New Hampshire Tomorrow Leadership Council Members:

• Maureen Beauregard, president and founder, Families in Transition
• Howard Brodsky, co-founder, chairman and co-chief executive officer, CCA Global Partners
• Sister Paula Marie Buley, president, Rivier University
• Jackie Cowell, executive director, Early Learning NH
• Christopher Diego, managing director, Mountain View Grand Resort
• Steve Duprey, president, Foxfire Property Management and The Duprey Companies
• Dr. Stephen Gehlbach, dean emeritus, School of Public Health and Health Sciences, University of Massachusetts – Amherst
• Dr. Ross Gittell, chancellor, Community College System of NH
• Yvonne Goldsberry, president, Endowment for Health
• Eric Gregg, founder and principal, Four Tree Island Advisory LLC
• Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld, bishop, The Episcopal Church of NH
• Jeremy Hitchcock, founder and board member, Dyn
• Thomas Horgan, president and CEO, NH Council of Universities and Colleges
• Sylvia Larsen, former senate president, NH State Senate
• Donnalee Lozeau, executive director, Southern NH Services
• Kate Luczko, president and CEO, Stay Work Play
• John Lynch, former governor of the State of NH
• Edward MacKay, director, Division of Higher Education, NH Department of Education
• Rep. Latha Mangipudi, Hillsborough, NH House of Representatives
• Dianne Mercier, president, People’s United Bank
• Paul Montrone, founder and chair, Perspecta Trust
• John Morison, chairman and CEO, Hitchiner Manufacturing
• J. Bonnie Newman, business, education and government leader
• Richard Ober, president and CEO, NH Charitable Foundation
• Amanda Grappone Osmer, owner, Grappone Automotive Group
• Christine Rath, former superintendent, Concord School District
• Jim Roche, president, Business and Industry Association