Our Funders

During the past five years IVP has received significant grant support for our work from the Needmor Fund, the Veatch Program, the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust, the Wendling Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the Public Welfare Foundation. In addition, IVP member groups have received monies from some of these sources, the Jessie B. Cox Charitable Trust, the Norman Foundation, the Connecticut Health Foundation, the Endowment for Health in New Hampshire, as well as from local and national Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Episcopal, United Methodist, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian Church (USA), Unitarian Universalist funds, and local foundations, such as the Rhode Island Foundation, the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven, the New Hampshire Charitable Trust.

IVP And Community Organizing

IVP believes in organizing that is regional, broad-based (including congregations, labor union locals, community and ethnic organizations), centered on relationship building, story telling, leadership and staff development, and supported by a network controlled by its local member organizations. We believe further that organizations that focus on workplace as well as community issues, combine organizing and democratic economic strategies for a voice and a stake in civil and economic power, and fight to save, strengthen and create the critical resources of land, jobs and investment for the well-being of each of their communities, best represent the strength of community organizing.

We share our stories to shape our story.

Our Future

We are organizing in industrial valleys that might be called "Brownfield Communities," not just because of their literal status as the site of numerous wasted industrial sites, but more importantly because they are areas that can be re-organized and brought back to vigorous life. They have assets of manufacturing space, rich community, religious, labor and business history, location, and hard working new immigrant groups.

They are areas in which many of the most pressing urban and regional issues are dramatically played out. We see in them sites that are responding to the IVP model of organizing and democratic economic development. As importantly, we believe these are areas in which we can make significant progress organizing on a comprehensive basis to deal with social and economic issues affecting millions of Americans living in neglected industrial areas across the country.

As seven organizations pursuing IVP's unique national model of economic organizing in our New England region we believe we are in a particularly advantageous position to strengthen our local communities, and take a lead in building organizations on a New England-wide basis and in collaborating with others to fight for social and economic justice throughout our region.