Hawaii Community Foundation

We are pleased to announce the award of $2.128 million to the Daniel R. Sayre Memorial Foundation, to be used for the purchase of four new fire trucks for the Maui Fire Department. For this grant, $1 million has been distributed from the Maui Strong Fund, with an additional donation of $1.128 million made by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez. The Daniel R. Sayre Memorial Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing essential equipment and training to the Hawaiʻi County Fire Department serving the Hawaiʻi community, and more than 1.5 million visitors per year from around the world. “The mission of the Daniel R. Sayre Memorial Foundation is to save lives. Hawaiʻi’s first responders need to have the tools to keep them safe and to make it more feasible for them to be doing rescues instead of recoveries,” says Daniel R. Sayre Memorial Foundation executive director Laura Mallery-Sayre. “The needs are enormous. Hawaiʻi has terrain unlike anywhere else, and we are already dealing with the effects of climate change. And so we’re looking ahead at how we can be better prepared when the next disaster arrives.” After the August 2023 wildfires on Maui, the Sayre Memorial Foundation reached out to Maui County to learn how they could assist in building capacity for future fire-fighting efforts. The Maui County Fire Department identified four trucks: a 3,500-gallon tanker truck, a 4x4 1,250-gallon tanker truck, a Skeeter-brand brush truck, and a 1-ton pickup with a skid. Maui County Fire Department Chief Brad Ventura says, “Most standard fire trucks are not made to go off-roading, but these are nimble. The vehicles are able to leave the pavement and get closer to a wildfire that’s just starting up and prevent it from spreading and getting as large as it would otherwise. That’s a big bonus.” HCF CEO and president Micah Kāne says, “We mahalo Jeff and Lauren for their generous contribution to strengthen the capabilities and resources of Maui’s first responders, for the long-term safety and wellbeing of our island communities.” Learn more about the Maui Strong Fund at https://lnkd.in/gAcNAcE9 #MauiStrongFund #SayreFoundation #MauiFireDepartment

💙What an honor!💙 We have been awarded three Koa Hammer Awards at the PRSA Hawaii's 2024 Koa Anvil Awards celebration! The awards were to recognize our marketing and communications work for the Maui Strong Fund. Sheila Sarhangi and Michael Keany from HCF's Strategic Communications team were there this past Thursday to accept the awards and celebrate with other recipients. 👏🏽Congratulations to all the recipients at the Koa Anvil Awards for their excellence in marketing, communications, and public relations, and to PRSA Hawaii for all its hard work supporting public relations and communications professionals in the Islands.

Join the University of Hawaiʻi Better Tomorrow Speaker Series for a free lecture and public conversation, "On Earning Hope for the Future" with guest speaker Julian Aguon. 🗓️September 4, 2024 🕡6:30 p.m. HST 📍Orvis Auditorium, UH Mānoa Campus ✅ Register: https://lnkd.in/g42YMW9e Julian Aguon is an Indigenous human rights lawyer and writer from Guam. A prolific essayist, he is the author of No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies (2022), which Junot Díaz calls “a breathtaking book ... alive with passion, wisdom, and heart.” Aguon is the founder of Blue Ocean Law, a progressive firm that works at the intersection of Indigenous rights and environmental justice, and he serves on the Global Advisory Council of Progressive International. The Hawai‘i Community Foundation is a proud supporter of the UH Better Tomorrow Speaker Series.

🎉We are excited to announce that the Hawai‘i Community Foundation has awarded over $400,000 from the Richard Smart Fund to 18 programs supporting the community of Waimea on Hawai‘i Island! The community organizations and their programs support culture, education, health, and safety in Waimea. Community organizations and residents participated in a series of conversations throughout 2023 that helped to advise the Richard Smart Fund and HCF on the top priorities and greatest needs of community members. The proposals were evaluated based on the following criteria: what their kuleana is for Waimea’s future, how their work addresses critical opportunities for Waimea’s future, how they contribute to strengthening caring relationships, and how they effectively involve and engage with the community’s diverse people, organizations, and ‘āina. 👏🏽Please help us in supporting and congratulating the following organizations, and 👉🏽SEE some of the wonderful work they are doing in Waimea in the photos below: ------ Alex & Duke De Rego Foundation Big Island Mediation Discover Your Kuleana / Friends of the Future Five Mountains Hawaiʻi Friends of the Future Hawai‘i Preparatory Academy Kahilu Theatre Foundation Kamuela Philharmonic Orchestra Society Kauaʻi Music Festival Kawaihae Canoe Club Mala'ai: The Culinary Garden of Waimea Middle School Paniolo Preservation Society at Pukalani Stables Parker School Small World Preschool St. James Episcopal Church Waimea Community Theatre Waimea Hawaiian Civic Club Waimea Resilience Hub Learn more about the Richard Smart Fund and the grantees on our website at https://lnkd.in/gwsfAW5Y #RichardSmartFund #WaimeaHawaii #Waimea #HawaiiCommunity #Grant #CommunityFunding #NonprofitNews

In an effort to expand the pool of providers trained in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (IECMH) in Hawai‘i, HCF partnered with the Association for Infant Mental Health in Hawai‘i (AIMH HI) in 2020 to launch the Promising Minds Fellows Program—a nine-month fellowship that enhances professional skills through specialized training and peer support. To date, more than 80 professionals, including social workers and therapists, have completed the program, with recent evaluations showing notable improvements in trauma-informed practices and increased confidence in supporting local families. We appreciate AIMH HI’s dedication and the commitment of all participants for advancing IECMH in our community. #PromisingMinds #EarlyChildhoodMentalHealth #MentalHealthMatters #AIMHHI #CommunityImpact

Crowd-pleasing brownies and homemade spicy shoyu were among the tasty treats on offer as the Elderly Affairs Division of the City and County of Honolulu’s Department of Community Services put on a bake sale at their Kapālama Hale office hub, raising funds to support the people and places of Maui affected by the wildfires. Held on behalf of their counterparts at the Maui County Office on Aging, the EAD team hopes the heartfelt effort sends a message of solidarity and support to the people of Maui, according to EAD Administrator Derrick Ariyoshi. “While the present-day media coverage may not be as frequent or visible, we have not forgotten you, and we stand in solidarity and support of the people of Maui,” he said. The sale raised $3,200, which EAD donated to the Maui Strong Fund. “It was an amazing showing of generosity and aloha,” said Hawai‘i Community Foundation CEO and President Micah Kāne. “It really touched me to see the passion and aloha spirit in our government workers who serve the public with such dedication.” Read the full story at https://lnkd.in/gJXGBDG8 Photos courtesy of EAD #MauiStrongFund #generosity #MauiStrong #fundraise

🎉🎉Congratulations to Diane Chadwick, our director of donor relations on Hawaiʻi Island, who was just named by Pacific Business News' as one of its 2024 Most Admired Leaders! It's a well deserved honor, as Diane has been a powerful force for good, working with Hawaii Community Foundation for more than 30 years--and a timely one, as Diane will be retiring at the end of this month. 🩷We are abundantly grateful for all that Diane has contributed over the course of her career, and want to take a moment to celebrate her many achievements, which have had a deep and lasting impact on the communities of Hawai‘i Island, and throughout the Islands. Here are just a few of Diane's career highlights: ------ Shortly after the Kīlauea eruptions in 2018, Diane worked with several HCF donors to create the Hawaiʻi Island Volcano Recovery Fund. The impact of this fund and a similar fund to address the flooding on Kaua’i was an impetus for the creation of Strong Funds in each county across the state. Through Strong Funds, HCF was ready to assist during the COVID pandemic and most recently the fires on Maui. Through her collaborative work on the Puna Strong grant program, Diane was an early adopter of the trust-based philanthropy model, which has since been widely adopted at HCF in our grantmaking. Diane helped establish Vibrant Hawaiʻi, which has successfully grown collaborative networks across Hawaiʻi Island, helping local communities connect and address their unique community needs. Diane also embraced HCF’s systems’ change concept of elevating community voices in the redesign of the Richard Smart Fund grant program resulting in a community-driven process for strengthening relationships and supporting each organization’s kuleana for the people and ‘āina of Waimea. No matter what project she has worked on, Diane has always led with aloha, bringing together community partners, donors, and nonprofits to create positive, meaningful change. We canʻt express our appreciation enough. Mahalo, mahalo, mahalo, Diane! #NonprofitNews #Mahalo #CommunityImpact #NonprofitCareer #HawaiiCommunity

Do you live on Maui? Please consider taking this survey, which aims to better track and publicly share the community's wildfire recovery. Taking this survey will help guide effective relief efforts and hold agencies accountable in their recovery efforts. This survey is brought to you in partnership between the Hawaii Community Foundation's Maui Strong Fund, UHERO and the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement (CNHA). To participate in the survey, please email [email protected]. Mahalo! #MauiRecovery #MauiStrongFund #MauiCommunity #CommunitySurvey #Survey

Are you an organization in Hawai‘i working to improve the lives of foster children and their families? 🗓️An important deadline is approaching for several funding opportunities from the Victoria S. and Bradley L. Geist Foundation. The deadline to apply is September 16, 2024, at 4 p.m. HST. 👉🏽For more info and learn how to apply, visit https://lnkd.in/gbzfdXwd. Funding opportunities include: 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: Supporting projects to increase the capacity of organizations and programs to deliver and grow quality services to foster children and their families. 𝐄𝐧𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Supporting the enhancement of the lives of foster children by providing items and services that allow them to enjoy a quality of life similar to that of their peers. 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬: Supporting foster children and their families. 𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐅𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡: The Foundation supports the Hawai‘i Youth Opportunities Initiative, a Co-Investment site with the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative. 𝐅𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐲 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐬: The Foundation is funding organizations leading initiatives and services that aim to prevent families and young people from entering the foster care system. These programs often operate with family strengthening strategies and prevention-focused initiatives that strategically address some of the key reasons Hawai‘i children are entering care. #FosterHawaii #FosterChildren #Keiki #HawaiiCommunity #funding #grant #HawaiiNonprofit #NonprofitNews

Are you interested in working in a job where you can make a positive difference in conserving, recharging, and reusing Hawaiʻi’s precious fresh water resources? Applications are now being accepted for the first cohort of the Hawai‘i Water Workforce Fellowship Program! Founded in partnership by the Hawai‘i Community Foundation’s Hawaiian Islands Environmental Finance Center and the Urban Sustainability Directors Network, this new, year-long fellowship program aims to support the development of a sustainable water workforce in Hawai‘i. Cohort participants will gain invaluable experience through full-time positions within local government agencies and various water-related organizations and will get the chance to participate in peer-to-peer mentorship and professional development sessions. Positions are available across the state, and are open to a wide age-range and experience-range of applicants from college students to those well into their careers who are looking to make a pivot. For more information, please visit https://lnkd.in/eNcpkiWP #WaterSustainability #HawaiiFreshWater #FreshWaterConservation #ProfessionalDevelopment #NonprofitNews #CareerAdvancement