The Greater New Orleans Foundation is the community foundation serving the 13-parish region of metropolitan New Orleans.
WE DO OUR WORK BY:
Designing and leading
initiatives to improve the region.
Connecting donors to
community needs.
Identifying and supporting
great nonprofit organizations.
Strengthening civil society.
The Greater New Orleans Foundation teamed up with public radio station WWNO to produce the Community IMPACT Series, a weekly program highlighting nonprofits doing exceptional work in our community. The three to four-minute stories are produced by award-winning, broadcast journalist, Ian McNulty.
The sector that Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations (or LANO) represents is huge, and hugely diverse, comprising some 19,000 organizations across Louisiana, ranging from baseball clubs to universities and hospitals. LANO is their central hub, representing these groups statewide, helping them use their resources most effectively and telling their stories.
At Coastal Communities Consulting, people like Phi Nguyen help fishermen resolve small business issues and, more than ever these days, with the tangled process of accessing insurance, grants and disaster relief programs. CCC, as the group is known, helps build the sustainability of these businesses dockside, in the world of loans, taxes, tuition and ever-changing seafood prices. The group is also there to help with those challenges that are far too big for any individual to handle – like hurricanes and the BP oil spill.
Leading Educators holds a two-year fellowship program of training, mentoring and ongoing support and networking. The goal is to make more effective educators, whether they devote their careers to the classroom, move to other school leadership positions, or become principals.
Tim Williamson, CEO of The IdeaVillage, says the beauty of the Water Challenge is that while tackling vital water management issues it also addresses another big concern here: creating new jobs. The premise is that New Orleans companies developing the technology, the tools and the know-how for water management can tap a global market of communities grappling with the same concerns while creating more jobs at home.
For those in need, the nonprofit St. Bernard Battered Women’s Program offers resources from legal consulting to financial assistance to physical shelter.
St. Paul’s Homecoming Center is a unique nonprofit formed in the wake of Katrina by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lakeview. It gets people back into their homes by marshalling volunteers and donations and putting case managers on the job to direct the overall effort for the long haul.
One part of ECC’s job is helping charters with the basics that all schools need, providing experts in areas ranging from pest control and code compliance to insurance issues and human resources. For instance, the collaborative holds an annual teacher jobs fair, and on its Web site, www.EastbankCollaborative.com, an employment forum connects schools and jobseekers every day.
This nonprofit, housed in a former department store, draws inspiration from arts culture to fuel the broader idea of a community’s culture, one with the power to improve people’s lives and change their way of seeing and living in the world.
The Cowen Institute is named for Scott Cowen, president of Tulane, which started this nonprofit in 2007 to help support the transformation of the city’s public school system in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Bobby McIntrye, co-founder of the nonprofit New Orleans Jazz Restoration Society, says, “It’s been so much a part of our lives, I just absolutely adore it, I cannot describe it, and that’s what fosters my image in preserving that which has meant so much to me, but means so much to this city,” he says. “Where’s the music? We got it, it’s right here.”
