Inversant awarded $450,000 from Cummings Foundation
Inversant is one of 33 local nonprofits awarded a total of $10 million from Cummings Foundation through its new Sustaining Grants program, which provides funding for up to 10 years. Robert Hildreth, Founder and Board Chair, and Charles Desmond, CEO, represented the nonprofit at a May 3 awards night at TradeCenter 128 in Woburn.
Inversant’s mission is to ensure that through parental engagement every low-to-moderate income family has the resources and understanding they need to achieve their goals for higher education.
This grant will enable us to expand the Children’s Savings Account (CSA) movement in Massachusetts by adding our unique parental education and financial asset building for college achievement. Partnering with the State Treasurer’s Office for the SoarMA initiative, we aim to bring our parental engagement curriculum to 5 cities, Haverhill, Lowell, Springfield, Worcester, and Pittsfield along with our core programs in Boston, Chelsea, Salem, Lynn, and Revere. Inversant serves more than 500 families each year and our students go on to college and graduate college at rates exceeding local and national levels.
“Thanks to the Cummings Foundation, Inversant will be able to expand programming and help even more families across Massachusetts save and prepare for college” says Desmond. “This partnership is transformative for Inversant and will allow us to deeply engage with parents and work with them to achieve their aspirations of higher education for their children.”
The Sustaining Grants program builds on Cummings Foundation’s $100K for 100 program. First offered in 2012, $100K for 100 annually awards $10 million through multi-year grants of $100,000 each to 100 nonprofits that are based in and primarily serve Essex, Middlesex, and Suffolk counties. Grant recipients that received their final grant disbursements in 2017 were automatically considered for the Sustaining Grants initiative in 2018.
“Long-term financial support is rare for nonprofits, making fundraising a constant and time-consuming task for organizations like Inversant,” said Joyce Vyriotes, deputy director of Cummings Foundation. “The Sustaining Grants are intended to provide some relief, allowing them to focus more of their time and energy on delivering and enhancing their important services.”
Sustaining Grants winners were selected primarily by a 40-member volunteer committee, which included former state legislators, CEOs of companies and organizations in Greater Boston, and a retired justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, among many others. Committee members conducted two site visits with each nonprofit to learn how the $100K for 100 funds helped to advance its mission, and how it might put a 10-year grant to use.
The complete list of 33 grant winners is available at www.CummingsFoundation.org.
Cummings Foundation has already awarded more than $200 million to date in Greater Boston alone, and it will award an additional $200 million over the next 10 years through the $100K for 100 and the Sustaining Grants programs.