In The News

After seeing fundraising slacken through most of 2016, the community fund took in twice as much in the last two months of the year as in the previous November and December, with most contributions going into donor-advised funds, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Pittsburgh Foundation CEO Maxwell King said donors were "hesitating and holding off" before the vote amid concerns about tax policy and the markets' direction.

The Delmot Library has received a $2,500 grant for an outdoor butterfly garden from the Michael J. and Aimee Rusinko Kakos Fund of The Community Foundation of Westmoreland County, which has provided gardening grants for eight libraries throughout the county.

The Pittsburgh Foundation, a community foundation that funds critical needs and other causes in the region, raised nearly $45 million in donations last year and handed out 22 percent more in grant money than it did in 2015.

In December alone, The Pittsburgh Foundation received cash donations topping $18 million, compared to $10 million raised in December 2015, a foundation report released Friday shows.

The Pittsburgh Foundation tells the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review it was worried about 2016 fundraising totals, which were significantly below those of the previous year. But that changed after the presidential election, when “charitable contributions came pouring in…so fast that the foundation took in donations at almost double the pace it did in the last month of 2015.”

Sometimes, a little money goes a long way. That is the idea behind The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Small and Mighty grants program, which provides modest sums to small nonprofits with big dreams.

The Pittsburgh Foundation aims to raise more than $1 million for the region’s hungry, homeless and other people in need through a one-day, online fundraising event set for May 23.

Thanks to some enterprise reporting by the Tribune-Review, Westmoreland County residents learned the result of some number crunching by the county commissioners on this year's budget. There was a nasty surprise: a range of essential human services also were crunched in the process. (Op-Ed by Phil Koch, executive director of The Community Foundation of Westmoreland County.)

Denise Zellous was stunned when she opened an email informing her the nonprofit she runs, Zellous Hope Project, had received a grant for $8,000 to increase its outreach services for homeless people and other at-risk individuals who are in transition.

As president of BNY Mellon Foundation of Southwestern Pennsylvania, Kenya Boswell became instrumental in creating UpPrize, an open competition seeking innovative solutions to problems facing area nonprofits and vulnerable populations. With the help of The Forbes Funds, the two-year-old challenge has generated interest from hundreds of Pittsburgh-based entrepreneurs and organizations willing to contribute their technology and ideas.