For many people, summer is a time to unwind and take a vacation. For Cali Brooks, it’s one of her busiest times of year.
"When I go to a cocktail party in the middle of summer, people are always like, ‘Oh my god, here she comes,’ but I go right up to people," explained Brooks, who isn't shy about what she does.
As the executive director of the Adirondack Community Foundation, Brooks helps raise millions of dollars each year for the region. Over the last 25 years, she's grown the philanthropic organization from a small team overseeing a few million dollars to a much larger, more impactful one.
"We are about $135 million in assets; we distribute about $12 million in grants and scholarships," said Brooks. "We convene, we collaborate, we partner. We work with everybody who cares about this place, and we work across the region.”
The foundation raises money from individual donors as well as regional and national organizations. Donors decide where about 80% of the funding goes, and the rest is under the Foundation's purview, which often focuses its funding on a hyper-local scale.
The Adirondack Community Foundation has given money to a youth hockey league in Chazy, a rescue squad in Long Lake, and a food co-op in Ticonderoga, among many other recent recipients.
Brooks believes one of the Foundation's strengths is how well its staff knows the Adirondacks.
"We know where the gaps are, we know where the opportunities are, we see where philanthropy is already working and working really well and where philanthropy isn’t quite working," said Brooks.
Environmental non-profits already raise millions of dollars to help protect the Adirondack Park, so the Foundation focuses more on funding for childcare, workforce housing, and schools.
Chris Savage is the principal of Tupper Lake’s middle and high school. For the last three years, the school has received $7,000-10,000 from the Foundation to purchase school supplies for every student.
"There’s not a surplus of money to go around on an average family income," said Savage, "and these philanthropic efforts by foundations like the Adirondack Community Foundation really help lessen that burden and make it more doable for families financially.”
There are hundreds of community foundations across the country raising money and closing funding gaps that federal, state, and local dollars aren’t reaching.
Even some national philanthropic groups have honed in on helping rural areas like the Adirondacks.
"We know that rural populations are underserved by philanthropy," said Charlie Brown, executive director of the Trust for Civic Life. "At the same time, they tend to have some of the highest concentrations of persistent poverty.”
The Trust for Civic Life is a philanthropic organization that specifically funds rural regions around the country. Over the last few years, the Trust has given out about $19 million in grants, including $700,000 to the Adirondack Community Foundation.
One goal of the Trust is to get more people involved in their communities, which Brown believes will ultimately lead to a stronger democracy.
"We have to focus not just on bringing people together, but bringing people together to make decisions, solve problems, work together, so that they can see the changes happen in their community," said Brown. "That’s when we actually start to see civic renewal occur and become persistent."
Projects can range from rebuilding a community’s food system to hosting fun afterschool activities.
The Elizabethtown Social Center in the Adirondacks recently received a $1,000 grant from the Adirondack Community Foundation to host a Western-themed night led by local teens.
The center’s executive director, Laurie House, believes community events can have a deeper impact on a place like Elizabethtown.
"I feel really strongly that our community programs that are just fun, goofy things kind of like [Western] Night are really secretly a very powerful way for people to remember that they like each other because they’re face to face.”
The success of the Western-themed night led to an additional $5,000 grant from the Piersall Foundation, which will fund three more events at the Elizabethtown Social Center.
House believes that’s part of the power of the Foundation. They help connect local organizations to generous donors.
“To think that I can send a grant proposal for something to the Adirondack Community Foundation and it gets such a variety of eyes on it and I don’t have to write ten more grant proposals.”
In more urban areas, a $1,000 grant may be a drop in the bucket, but in the Adirondacks, even smaller grants make a big difference.
Brooks, who leads the Foundation, says that’s a message she passes on to potential donors in the park.
"By giving back, you can change a person’s life so easily in the Adirondacks in a way you can’t do in some of our bigger, urban areas or suburban areas," said Brooks.
In the last fiscal year, the Adirondack Community Foundation awarded about $10 million in grants. That money has gone to local food pantries, housing projects, early childhood education, and more.
The foundation expects to hit the $100 million giving milestone this year, marking three decades of focused philanthropy in the rural Adirondacks.