Bobby Lincoln, Energy & Sustainability program manager for The PNC Financial Services Group and a member of the Pittsburgh Foundation’s New Philanthropic Leaders (NPL) class, listens to speakers at the NPL Pitch Party in September 2024 at the Energy Innovation Center, Lower Hill District. The group chose affordable housing as its charitable focus.
Katie Belonus, philanthropy associate for the past four years in The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Center for Philanthropy, calculates total money raised at the Sept. 19, 2024 Pitch Party of the New Philanthropic Leaders (NPL) program. Three nonprofit organizations working in the area of affordable housing shared in the crowdfunding from the event and also received grants through the program. Belonus has been a manager of NPL since 2021.
Christy Pietryga CEO of Hearth, whose mission is to provide a range of support services to homeless families, survivors of domestic violence and other traumatic situations, speaks to the New Philanthropic Leaders (NPL) group at the Sept. 19, 2024 Pitch Party. Pietryga was one of three nonprofit leaders to explain their organization’s role in promoting affordable housing, the chosen grant-making area for the NPL class.
Ciora Thomas is the founding leader of SisTers PGH, a Black and Trans-focused nonprofit that serves Transgender residents across southwestern Pennsylvania. Thomas spoke to the New Philanthropic Leaders (NPL) group at its Sept. 19, 2024 Pitch Party about her organization’s work providing housing and related services, including rent and utility support, emergency shelter, and a drop-in center for people who are homeless. The NPL group chose housing as its grant-making area of focus.
Dr. Regina Holley, president and executive director of Naomi’s Place, presents to the 2024 class of New Philanthropic Leaders (NPL) at its September Pitch Party on her organization’s role in affordable housing, which was the area of charitable focus for the group. Naomi’s Place was founded in 1999 with the mission to provide affordable housing and related support to people who are homeless or in unstable housing situations. Clients are placed in transitional housing with the goal of providing additional support so that they can move to permanent housing.
New Age Giving
Community foundations recruit diverse stakeholders, including younger residentsAt The Pittsburgh Foundation, it is known as the Pitch-In Party, and it is intentionally not your grandfather’s version of a philanthropic fundraising event.
But then, that’s the point. The party in September at the historic trade school turned hip Energy Innovation Center in Pittsburgh’s Lower Hill neighborhood was a celebration of young people doing organized philanthropy their way. For the 16 mid-career professionals in this year’s New Philanthropic Leaders (NPL) program, there was lively background music, great food and drink and a buzzy vibe to cap off a year of bonding as they explored an important community issue.
This year’s class, the sixth in the program’s history, chose affordable housing as its charitable focus and invited leaders of several nonprofits working in that area to attend and tell stories of their work. NPL members donate $250–$1,000 each to a fund that the Foundation matches. NPL members then use the fund to provide grants to nonprofits working on their chosen issue.
NPL is modeled after the Visionaries Program of Pittsburgh Foundation affiliate The Community Foundation of Westmoreland County (CFWC), where young professionals have been delving into local issues and offering financial support since 2010.
These efforts have been refreshed and expanded in the Pittsburgh region and across the country as community foundation leaders recognize that their ability to continue making transformative investments in the places they serve depends on increasing diversity across a range of categories among donors and other stakeholders.
As The Pittsburgh Foundation prepares to mark its 80th anniversary and CFWC its 30th next year, it is important to honor the generations that brought them to this point, says Pittsburgh Foundation President and CEO Lisa Schroeder.
At the same time, however, Schroeder says, “we need more diversity to reach our goal to eliminate disparities — mostly according to race — in key areas of health and other life essentials, employment prospects and income.”
CFWC Executive Director McCrae Martino says recruiting from the Visionaries has helped establish a more diverse board. Her aim is for members to represent a broad range of characteristics, including age, race, geography and gender.
For the youth aspect of diversity, the participation gap for both foundations is significant. The average age of Pittsburgh Foundation donors is 57; for CFWC, it is nearly 55, and Westmoreland faces a smaller youth pool to draw from: The average age in the county is 47.2 years, nearly seven years older than the average statewide.
Nearly half of the Advisory Board directors of The Community Foundation of Westmoreland County had their first experience with local philanthropy through the Visionaries program at the foundation. The benefit in their Board service, they say, is a younger perspective on challenges and opportunities. From left: Michael Reese, Board vice chair; Lisa Krall; Jordan Pallitto, Board chair; Michael Quatrini; and Lori Trautwine.
Michael Quatrini, 42, a lawyer whose practice is based in Greensburg, was among the founders of the CFWC Visionaries. He and four other alums of the program now account for nearly half of the foundation’s Board of Advisors. The roster includes Board Chair Jordan Pallitto, chief operating officer of the Hill Group, a strategic consulting firm, and Vice-Chair Michael Reese, first vice president, wealth management, at Loyalhanna Wealth Advisors of Janney Montgomery Scott LLC. The two also were co-founders of the Visionaries.
Quatrini says his experience in the Visionaries enabled him to “understand the Foundation and its mission and how it raised and gave money away. That enabled us to have a more immediate impact on the Foundation Board.” His father, Vince, managing partner of the Quatrini Law Group, helped create CFWC itself in 1995.
Another Visionaries graduate on the Board, Lori Trautwine, who works for a health care company and consults for the National Spine Health Foundation, says working with her friends from the Visionaries now on the CFWC Board makes the service fun. “This is your people, your safe place, your little island.”
Bobby Lincoln, Energy & Sustainability Program Manager for The PNC Financial Services Group and a member of this year’s Pittsburgh Foundation NPL class, believes that young professionals want to be personally involved in the philanthropic process and make it more their own.
“For me, I was very interested in focusing on smaller organizations, where we could have a bigger impact,” Lincoln says. That was the framework for the list of organizations developed when he and his classmates narrowed their focus from affordable housing to housing insecurity and emergency shelter primarily for women of color. The group eventually settled on grantmaking to three organizations: HEARTH Pittsburgh in the North Hills, Naomi’s Place, based in East Liberty, and Sisters PGH in Swissvale.
“The breadth of the work being done in this region is stunning,” says Lincoln. “It is always inspiring to see how many people are doing this work, and how driven, capable and remarkable people are who lead in these spaces.”
For me, I was very interested in focusing on smaller organizations, where we could have a bigger impact.