Grantee: About Fresh (Boston, MA)
About
The Claneil Foundation believes in the power of innovation in the non-profit world as a catalyst for social change. The Emerging Leaders Fund was created to support the critical role that executive directors play in launching and growing early-stage organizations. The Foundation recognizes that these individuals and their organizations face unique internal and external challenges: they devote time and energy to the everyday demands of building an organization while developing new thinking, trying untested approaches and cultivating broader networks.
To provide critical support for these leaders and their organizations, the Foundation awards a four-year unrestricted general operating grant totaling $300,000 to each recipient’s organization and access to a thoughtful, close-knit support network of peers. In addition, each grantee organization has access to $10,000 in professional development/wellness funds to support its designated leader(s).
Recipients are selected based on their creative vision, leadership capacity, potential for impact, and commitment to innovation and learning in one or more of the following issue areas: education, hunger & nutrition/food system, health & human services, environment. This grant program is focused on early-stage nonprofit organizations located in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states. Organizations have typically been in existence for 3 - 5 years, and have budgets of less than $1 million. Grantees are selected based on nominations from a diverse pool of nominators who represent the foundation, nonprofit and business sectors. We typically receive over 100 nominations each year.
How to nominate
If you have an organization that you would like to nominate, simply send an email to claneilfoundation@claneil.org, and include the name of the organization, its leader(s), location, budget (if known) and a few sentences explaining the reason for your nomination.
We do not accept self-nominations. Multiple nominations do not increase the likelihood of being selected. We ask that all nominations remain confidential.
Important Dates
Nominations due: September 15
Finalists selected: December 1
Grantees selected: May 30
Please note: These deadlines do not change from year to year. If a deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline will automatically be extended to the following business day.
Current and Previous Emerging Leader Grantees
2022
Black Farmer Fund (2022): The Black Farmer Fund aims to nurture Black community wealth and health by investing in Black agricultural systems in the Northeast.
College Together (2022): College Together is a college experience where Philadelphia youth earn a college degree, receive 1-on-1 support in a tight-knit community, and launch their career with little to no debt.
PurpLE Health Foundation (2022): PurpLE Health Foundation aims to end the cycle of gender-based violence against women and girls through a replicable model of care that provides physical, mental, and financial health services to survivors.
The Urban Wild (2022): The Urban Wild educates, empowers and ultimately, uplifts vulnerable communities out of food-insecure states through the use of localized sustainable agriculture and pathways to opportunities in the green sector.
2021
Inner City Green Team (2021): Inner City Green Team focuses on poverty alleviation and community development. Its mission is to help protect the environment and transform the lives of New York City public housing residents through improved recycling, organics collection, education, job training, and paid work that can lead to a lifetime of employment and civic engagement.
The Marcy Lab School (2021): The Marcy Lab School helps young people accelerate their careers. Its yearlong college alternative provides young adults from underestimated backgrounds with the skills, the habits, and the network necessary to launch a rewarding, purpose-driven career in the tech sector.
UPchieve (2021): UPchieve democratizes access to academic support so that all students have an equal opportunity to finish high school, attend college, and achieve upward mobility by providing free tutoring and college counseling available 24/7 to all low-income high school students in the U.S.
2020
ImmSchools (2020): ImmSchools is an immigrant-led nonprofit organization that transforms schools into safe and welcoming spaces for undocumented students and families.
Reentry Campus Program (2020): Reentry Campus Program aims to provide currently and formerly incarcerated individuals with an affordable pathway to accredited post-secondary education and certification programs that are infused within the reentry process.
The Modern Classrooms Project (2020):The Modern Classrooms Project equips and empowers educators to create blended, self-paced, mastery-based classrooms in which all students truly learn.
2019
About Fresh (2019): About Fresh aims to improve health outcomes across low-income communities by revitalizing neighborhood food culture and getting healthy food to those who need it most.
Black Church Food Security Network (2019): The Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN) utilizes an asset-based approach to advancing food and land sovereignty by organizing the vast resources of historic African American congregations in both rural and urban communities.
2018
MindRight (2018): MindRight reduces the stigma around mental health in communities of color, and ensures that every child has access to mental health support through a user-friendly texting service.
Youth Design Center (2018): Youth Design Center provides a gateway for young people to learn marketable hard skills in STEAM, access postsecondary education, achieve economic mobility, and engage in place-based community revitalization.
2017
GreenWave (2017): GreenWave is dedicated to training a new generation of restorative ocean farmers and building the foundation for a new blue-green ocean economy that creates jobs, mitigates climate change and grows healthy food for local communities.
Soul Fire Farm Institute (2017): Soul Fire Farm Institute is committed to dismantling the structures that lead to gaping disparities in the food system through programs that equip people of color and other minorities to become leaders in rural and urban farming, as well as in the food justice and sovereignty movements.
StreetCred (2017): StreetCred improves the health and well-being of children by helping families build assets and access evidence-based government programs shown to reduce poverty and improve life trajectories for vulnerable youth.
Trash Free Maryland (2017): Trash Free Maryland works to create policies and behavior change to prevent litter and trash pollution. It brings together organizations and individuals to collaborate on advocacy and education, with a focus on source reduction.
2016
Code Nation (2016): Code Nation equips students in under-resourced schools with coding skills and professional experiences that together create access to careers in technology. Students participate in paid summer internships to prepare them for careers in technology.
Food Rescue US (2016): Food Rescue US leverages technology and depends on volunteers to directly transfer fresh, usable food - that otherwise would have been thrown away - from restaurants, markets and other food industry sources to food insecure families throughout the U.S.
Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project (2016): YSRP provides comprehensive support to youth prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system
2015
Coaching4Change (2015): Coaching4Change provides interventions geared to increase school engagement and promote college access in low-income, high minority communities.
Found in Translation (2015): Found in Translation aims to help homeless and low-income multilingual women to achieve economic security through the use of their language skills.
Practice Makes Perfect (2015): Practice Makes Perfect (PMP) strives to redefine the summer learning experience and eliminate the summer learning loss for K-12 students using a "near-peer" mentorship model.
Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (2015): Public Lab aims to increase the ability of underserved communities to identify, redress, remediate, and create
awareness and accountability around environmental concerns.
2014
GirlTrek (2014): The mission of GirlTrek is to inspire and support African American women and girls to live their healthiest, most fulfilled lives - simply by walking.
Physicians, Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy (2014): The mission of Physicians, Scientists & Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE) is to provide a multi-disciplinary approach to identifying reasonable, healthy, and sustainable energy options for everyone.
2013
Environmental Leadership Program (2013): The mission of the Environmental Leadership Program (ELP) is to support visionary, action- oriented, and diverse leadership for a just and sustainable future.
Springboard Collaborative (2013): The mission of Springboard Collaborative is to transform the summer from a barrier into a springboard for financially disadvantaged students and families.
2012
Food Corps (2012): Through the hands and minds of emerging leaders, FoodCorps strives to give all youth an enduring relationship with healthy food.
The Full Frame Initiative (2012): The Full Frame Initiative’s mission is to increase the likelihood that people who are failed by mainstream human services have access to interventions that work.
ioby (2012): ioby uses a cutting edge, online microphilanthropic platform to engage new constituencies to the environmental movement.
Puentes de Salud (2012): The mission of Puentes de Salud is twofold: It exists to ensure the health and wellness of South Philadelphia’s rapidly growing Latino immigrant community; and it serves to educate future generations of community advocates, health care providers, educators and leaders by providing opportunities for responsible and respectful community engagement.
2010
The Center for An Agricultural Economy (2010): The mission of the Center for an Agricultural Economy (CAE) is to engage agricultural leaders in the emerging 21st century food system to build capacity and inspire the public in supporting and implementing this system.
Real Food Generation (2010): Real Food Generation harnesses the power of youth and universities to build a healthy, fair, and green food economy.
Resiliency Foundation (2010): The mission of Resiliency Foundation is to collaborate with school districts to create an environment that nurtures the potential in all students through school and beyond.