“The need for nonprofit services in Westchester is often hidden,” said Laura Rossi, The Trust’s vice president for Westchester. “Many associate the county with a more comfortable, wealthier lifestyle, but the reality is that one in three households live paycheck to paycheck.”
The New York Community Trust’s Westchester office, formerly known as the Westchester Community Foundation, has addressed challenges like this since 1975. With its local presence and long-serving leaders—there have been only three in its 50-year history—the office has a proven track record of building effective partnerships.
Rossi and her team bring together funders, nonprofits, and donors to carry out The Trust’s work in Westchester, which ranges from feeding hungry neighbors, improving access to child care, helping immigrant families, and caring for the environment to centralizing crucial data for policymakers. Over the last 25 years, The Trust’s Westchester staff has stewarded more than 450 donor-advised and legacy funds, fueling $129 million in grants to local nonprofits.
The Westchester office also actively fundraises to address unmet needs, supports grassroots advocacy for systemic change, acts as a thought leader, and makes early investments in innovative nonprofits.
Its 50 years of impact can be felt, seen, and heard across the county.
Pooling funds for the women of Westchester
While attending a community foundation conference in 1992, former President Pat Larson and former Advisory Board Chair Rita Gilbert were struck by the scarcity of philanthropic dollars earmarked to support women and girls. They returned with a mission to mobilize the local community to establish a permanent fund supporting the needs of the county’s women and girls.
At first, the men on the advisory board didn’t grasp the need for such a fund. To persuade them, Gilbert invoked her experience of being asked to give up her Fulbright scholarship because of her status as a married woman. As more debate ensued, the late Advisory Board Member Vito Russo, thinking of his wife and stepdaughters, committed to making the first donation.
In its early years, the Westchester Fund for Women and Girls honored women leaders by holding annual breakfasts that attracted hundreds of community members, with speakers that included Hillary Clinton, Anita Hill, and Billie Jean King.
By 1999, the Westchester team had reached its initial goal of raising $500,000, representing $1 for every woman and girl in the county. A dedicated volunteer committee led the effort to continue fundraising. Today, the fund has granted more than $2 million for a wide range of services, including legal aid for domestic violence survivors, leadership programs for high school girls, and support for female veterans.
Raising the profile of the nonprofit sector
In 2012, nonprofit organizations employed 13 percent of Westchester’s workers. Despite this, there was no membership organization dedicated solely to advocating on behalf of the county’s nonprofit sector. With support from The Trust, a new organization, Nonprofit Westchester, sought to change that.
“We needed to have our own source of training, professional development, advocacy, collaboration, and connection, and we needed to be made visible,” said Jan Fisher, executive director of Nonprofit Westchester. “Catherine Marsh, The Trust’s Westchester executive at the time, was integral to launching our organization, and current leader Laura Rossi remains a sounding board on all topics.”
An early grant supported a study of the economic impact of the nonprofit sector in Westchester County, which, Fisher said, “helped to position nonprofits as the experts, and economic and social engines, that we are.”
Families, businesses, and faith groups turn values into lasting legacies
Many different types of donors use The Trust to champion the causes they care about, ensuring their generosity will make an impact today and decades from now.
In 2014, the Dominican Sisters of Hope, whose congregational offices are in Ossining, NY, were looking for a way to continue responding to the community’s needs as more sisters retired. They worked closely with Catherine Marsh to develop the Dominican Sisters of Hope Empowerment Fund, with the purpose of promoting social justice and systemic change in keeping with key principles of Catholic social teaching.
Since the fund’s inception, it has granted more than $2.3 million to support grassroots advocacy efforts that have led to policy and legislative victories for immigrants, kinship caregivers, and incarcerated older adults.
Growing to meet today’s challenges
“As our impact and reputation have grown, we’ve seen a 300 percent increase in total giving in the last 25 years, thanks to our generous and engaged donors,” Rossi said. “Many of our current donors are the children and grandchildren of our earliest champions.”
Earlier this year, Vito Russo’s stepdaughter, Sandy Kaufman, honored the legacies of Vito and her mother, Diana Russo, by opening a donor-advised fund at The Trust. She plans to use the fund to support nonprofits like Neighbors Link, which serves the county’s immigrant communities, and Planned Parenthood.
“As we look back at our history of shared impact with our incredible donors and grantees, we are also thinking about how we can continue to serve our community for the next 50 years,” said Rossi. “We’re committed to providing a platform for change and collaboration for those who are deeply invested in making Westchester a place where everyone can thrive.”
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The Westchester Index
To better understand and address county-wide disparities across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic divides, The Trust partnered with data analysts at nonprofit consultant CGR to launch the Westchester Index in 2022.
