The Marion I. & Henry J. Knott Foundation

https://lnkd.in/eNhVq9jS

As we gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, the Marion I. & Henry J. Knott Foundation reflects on the blessings of faith, family, and community that have guided our mission for over 47 years. Inspired by our founders' legacy of generosity, we are grateful for the opportunity to support and stand with organizations that strengthen central and western Maryland. We extend our heartfelt thanks to our partners and grantees for their unwavering dedication to making a positive impact. Together, we continue to honor the spirit of giving that defines this season.

🎉 Congratulations to Project JumpStart and the Franciscan Center on being named 2024 #NeighborhoodBuilders grant recipients! What an incredible recognition of your impactful work in the community. This multi-year grant and leadership training will undoubtedly help propel your missions forward, creating lasting change for your students and those you serve. We are humbled to be joining you on this journey.

At the Knott Foundation, we continually strive to refine our processes to better serve our community and the organizations we partner with. Earlier this year, we announced updates to our grantmaking policies that will take effect during our first grant cycle of 2025. Today, we’d like to revisit these changes, share the “why” behind them, and help you prepare for the year ahead. These updates are designed to bring greater transparency, efficiency, and intentionality to our grantmaking process, ensuring that we can continue to support meaningful, impactful work across our region while simultaneously lowering burdens on both applicants and Foundation staff. An examination of our grantmaking history tells us that only 28% of submitted Letters of Inquiry are advanced to the full proposal stage. To learn more about these changes, check out our latest blog post https://lnkd.in/eCz2PiTA

Today, our Knott Scholarship Funds and Knott Foundation teams had the pleasure of attending the 12th Annual Women's Education Alliance (WEA) Luncheon at Cardinal Sheehan School in northwest Baltimore City. This Pre-K3 - 8 Catholic school provided a beautiful setting for an inspiring event. The luncheon is always a wonderful opportunity to hear firsthand about the incredible progress WEA is making in support of the Catholic Community Schools across the Archdiocese of Baltimore. It is also a wonderful opportunity to hear the beautiful voices of Cardinal Sheehan’s students – you can see why they were a viral sensation! https://lnkd.in/eZN-x5-E A big thank you to WEA for all they do for Catholic education and for reminding us why this work is so important. #WEALuncheon #CatholicEducation #CommunityImpact

What a fantastic way to end the week—celebrating the Student Showcase and Graduation for Cohort 15 of Groundwork Kitchen’s Culinary Training Program! Located in Pigtown and operated by Paul's Place, the program equips students with culinary and transferable skills, case management, and comprehensive job placement support. But as students shared, it offers so much more: a pathway to overcome life's obstacles, a source of encouragement, a supportive community, and a chance to give back. Learn more about the inspiring work happening at Groundwork Kitchen here: https://lnkd.in/ej2sp96c

Sharing the latest in Knott Foundation grantmaking. We are thrilled to be partnering with these ten amazing organizations. https://lnkd.in/erK-QKAd

Investing in the Future: First Round of Workforce Development Grants Awarded Our founders believed that hard work combined with access to the right opportunities opened doors for people to achieve personal success and economic stability. Unfortunately for many in our community, there is a misalignment between the two. However, well-designed workforce training programs can bring these two elements into alignment.   By providing individuals with the necessary skills, knowledge, and social support, workforce training programs, like the ones highlighted below, can help individuals secure better jobs, build career pathways, improve earning potential, and remain competitive in an ever-changing job market.   Through our Workforce Development initiative, we aim to support organizations that create opportunities for low-wage, underemployed, and marginalized adults by helping them to overcome employment barriers such as incarceration, criminal records, lack of transportation, and childcare challenges. We focus on supporting participation in well-structured, industry-aligned workforce development programs that offer job placement, retention services, and essential supportive services, such as soft skills training and counseling, to enhance their prospects for long-term success.   Today, we are pleased to announce our first round of our Workforce Development initiative grants, totaling $840,000 (payable over three years) to four Baltimore-based organizations. To view our grantees and learn more about strategic initiatives, click here  https://lnkd.in/euA3r3rc

“Show people as one thing and that is what they become,” the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie states in her 2009 TEDTalk, The Danger of a Single Story. These simple words strung together pack quite a punch and deliver a profound truth, holding significant relevance not only in literature, but also in the field of grantmaking. In her talk, Adichie introduces herself as a storyteller, recounting her early experiences as a child growing up in Nigeria reading British and American books that led her to initially write stories featuring only foreign characters and settings. Using personal stories, Adichie summons a clear connection as to how her early narrow reading of people, places, and cultures built a similarly narrow perception of what certain people were capable of, how certain places looked and felt, and which cultures were superior or inferior. Adichie underscores a critical point, "the telling of stories is defined by power structures. The powerful not only tell the story of another person but can make it the definitive story of that person.” So much of philanthropy is about storytelling. Funders tell their origin stories, and grant seekers tell stories of the people and communities they represent. In both cases, these stories tend to be simplified versions of complex realities. Compiling grant reviews, transcribing conversations, generating grant evaluations – we foundation-based storytellers are writing the record not just of a grant, but of a community, a people, an institution. How these stories are told matters. Through this work, grantmakers wield significant power in shaping the narratives of the communities and the organizations they support. Delving into the complex stories behind many grant requests takes time and requires a willingness to let the community speak for itself. Sometimes the stories they tell are not the ones we want to hear, but they are the ones we need to hear and share. While we focus on collecting data, we cannot fail to recognize and report back on the dignity, creativity, and tenacity of those we serve. We need to shift the focus of whatever problem we are seeking to solve from the people to the context around the problem. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a story is “a description, either true or imagined, of a connected series of events.” Stories can lift us up or pull us down. By examining how we tell stories and whose stories we are telling, we can foster a more inclusive and compassionate understanding of our communities… and even ourselves. We can change the impact of this powerful tool that has often “been used to dispossess and to malign,” to instead, “empower and humanize.” Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. https://lnkd.in/eRsPzm25