The Tufts Neighborhood Service Fund (TNSF) committee in January awarded $17,500 in grants to support 27 local charitable organizations, despite seeing a significant drop-off in donations from last year.
TNSF is an option for giving under the Tufts Community Appeal, a program that provides Tufts employees with opportunities to contribute to charities. TNSF in particular focuses on providing grants to support Tufts campuses' host communities and Tufts volunteers' work with local organizations.
The committee, which is made up of Tufts administrators, faculty and staff, this year received 50 proposals requesting over $82,000 of grant money, but found itself with less money available to disburse.
Faculty and staff donations to the fund decreased from $24,000 in 2008 to $17,500 this year, marking a $6,500 drop, according to Barbara Rubel, director of community relations.
Rubel attributed this decline to the current economic situation.
"The tough economic times have resulted in a fairly significant decrease in contributions this year," she said. "While this drop is disappointing to us, it is understandable given the current state of the economy."
Rubel added that TNSF expects a further decrease of approximately $6,000-$7,000 in the amount of money available for distribution next year.
She noted however, that funds for TNSF grants are completely employee-generated. "I think that people in the community really appreciate the money because it comes purely from the faculty and staff of the university," Rubel said.
Organizations must meet several criteria to be eligible for a grant. They must be located in one of the four Tufts host communities of Somerville, Medford, Grafton and Boston's Chinatown, be classified as a nonprofit organization and be actively incorporating Tufts volunteers in their work.
Stacey Herman, director of student affairs at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and a TNSF board member, explained that the committee evaluates proposals based on a number of different considerations.
Among other factors, the committee looks at how well-organized and detailed the event or proposal is, how specifically the money will be used and how the project benefits the community as a whole.
The types of funding requested by different organizations vary greatly, from a request for soundproofing materials for a daycare to an appeal for money to buy a Wii for a senior citizens' home, according to Herman.
She added that TNSF has been looking to go beyond giving monetary grants to organizations, to support them in new ways. "We try and look at different, innovative ways we can fund the organizations," Herman said.
Herman cited the example of Outside the Lines Studio (OTL), an arts-based day program for people with developmental and physical disabilities, which last year requested money to purchase a Mac computer.
The fund was able to fulfill that request through more innovative means.
"We were actually instead able to find some Tufts computers that were not in use anymore, but that were that still good computers, that we were able to donate," Herman said. "We do try our best to stretch all of our resources."
OTL, which also hosts the Leonard Carmichael Society's Best Buddies volunteer program, submitted a proposal this year for $1,200 to purchase recreational equipment and sensory materials for clients with autism.
TNSF granted them $200, allowing them to purchase only part of what they had initially hoped to buy, according to OTL Director Else Eaton.
Despite not receiving full funding for the proposal, Eaton said she was still grateful for the grant.
"The money still definitely helps," she said; "$200 is $200 that we would not ordinarily be able to spend to purchase important equipment for the studio."
According to Rubel, TNSF has evolved since in its inception in 1996, when the majority of the proposals came from the Somerville community,
"In the past few years, we have seen the number of requests from the different communities become much more balanced," she said.
Rubel explained that the change is a result of the development of more charitable programs in the host communities, rising awareness about the grants and an increase in the number of organizations searching for new sources of funding in tough economic times.
Herman believes that the program goes a long way towards improving town-gown relations.
"Its exciting to see that members of the Tufts community can come together and give back to the places where people teach and learn," she said. "I think it does really strengthen the relationship between Tufts and its host communities."
