Donors Collaborate to End Homelessness in Conn.

Twenty-seven Connecticut grant makers of various sizes and interests have joined an effort to end homelessness in that state.

The Melville Charitable Trust, which supports nonprofits both in Connecticut and nationwide, said it would match up to $50,000 in each area if other grant makers chipped in for the two-year pilot program, called Secure Jobs Connecticut. More than two dozen nonprofits responded and committed a total of $500,000, a result that helped persuade the state to chip in another $200,000.

The program seeks to ease the transition families face as they move from homeless shelters to long-term housing by helping members of those families get and retain jobs. The grants are designed to assist up to 150 families with child care, transportation, and job training and accommodating any disabilities family members might have.

Participants include the Community Fund of Darien, Liberty Bank Foundation, and United Way of Greater New Haven. Getting so many partners to participate in the same program was a challenge. Janice Elliott, executive director of the Melville Charitable Trust, and Nancy von Euler, vice president for programs at Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, which participated, said cooperation was made easier for a number of reasons. Among them:

Sharing proof of a similar program’s results. As a model for designing its program, Melville looked to Boston’s Paul and Phyllis Fireman Foundation, which sought to take a “holistic” approach to attacking homelessness by investing in job training, transit, and other services designed to help recently homeless people keep their jobs and housing.

In May 2014, Ms. Elliott informally presented a study of the Massachusetts program to a group of five Connecticut donors. The Massachusetts effort’s positive results — high percentages of participants earned more than the minimum wage and were still employed one year into the program — generated enthusiasm in the neighboring state, because “we weren’t inventing it from scratch,” says Ms. Elliott.

Thinking regionally. Without a cadre of statewide grant makers to galvanize efforts, it has been difficult to get Connecticut donors to support antipoverty efforts beyond their local jurisdictions. Early in the process, members of Opening Doors — Connecticut, a coalition of groups working to end homelessness, walked potential donors through a study that showed that homeless families typically migrated from one city to the next in search of public services. As a result, many donors got a clear picture of the scope of the problem in their state.

“It showed us that it’s not just a city’s problem,” says Ms. von Euler. “It’s a regional and a statewide problem. We couldn’t look at this as a parochial challenge.”

Starting with a big commitment other donors can build on. Melville’s match showed smaller donors that a larger statewide foundation was taking the challenge seriously and, in turn, helped persuade policy makers in the state to offer public funds. It helped that smaller grant makers were able to take part without emptying their bank accounts. “There’s lots of tiny foundations,” said Ms. Elliott. “They weren’t asked to give more than they were comfortable with.”

At the same time, adds Ms. von Euler, the smaller organizations were crucial in picking grantees. “They know the local folks better than we do,” she says.

Spelling out the mission. To help potential participants sell the effort to their boards, Ms. Elliott developed a clear set of goals that established exactly what Secure Jobs Connecticut intended to do.

“Having a memorandum of understanding was important,” she says. “It allowed people to see it in writing and not have a vague program that people were being asked to invest in.”