Building Stronger Communities—One Grant at a Time

In 2011, the Elizabeth Peabody House, a nonprofit supporting low-income and immigrant families in Somerville and Boston, opened a small food pantry. That year, food insecurity in the U.S. peaked at 14.9%, the highest since tracking began in 1995.

Food insecurity steadily declined to 10.5% in 2019, but then the pandemic reversed those gains, pushing the rate back up to 13.5% by 2023.

Until that year, the Elizabeth Peabody House’s pantry operated just one evening a week, serving about 60 visitors until supplies ran out. “Quite often, we were closed within half an hour,” recalls Executive Director and President Matthew Caughey. “We wanted to do more.”

A grant from the Tufts Community Grants program last year helped transform the pantry. The funding helped the organization purchase refrigerators and freezers and expand its hours to three days a week.

“The grant allows us to be nimble, to identify needs and respond to them,” says Caughey. For instance, when seniors from a nearby housing complex were waiting in the cold for food and struggling to carry it home, the organization launched a pop-up pantry in the seniors’ building.

To ensure access for all, the pantry implemented its own registration system, eliminating the need for government IDs, which many food pantries require. This approach reduces one of the most significant barriers to access for residents, Caughey says. They also prioritized inclusive items, endeavoring to secure culturally responsive produce and other foods while focusing on a universal staple: now every visitor leaves the food pantry with a dozen eggs.

These changes wouldn’t have been possible without the Tufts Community Grant, says Caughey. “The money allowed us to invest in infrastructure that will sustain us long-term. We’ve gone from distributing 100,000 pounds of food a year to distributing 350,000. The grant puts us in a position to keep that going.”

Many Ways to Give

This grant to the Elizabeth Peabody House was made possible through the Tufts Community Appeal (TCA), the university’s employee giving campaign that takes place at the end of every calendar year. Employees who choose to contribute can direct their gifts to specific causes, including financial aid, the Tufts Community Grants (TCG) program, or any school, program, team, or initiative of their choice.

The TCG program (which began as the Tufts Neighborhood Service Fund in 1995) is the most popular giving option. It’s a direct avenue for Tufts employees to support local nonprofit partners—like the Elizabeth Peabody House—in Tufts’ host communities of Boston, Grafton, Medford and Somerville. Every year, about 100 nonprofits apply for a grant. Each spring, a committee of volunteer staff and faculty review and select deserving recipients, each one providing services to address essential needs of our communities. 

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Representatives of organizations that received Tufts Community Grants in 2024 Photo: Mike Ritter

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Representatives of organizations that received Tufts Community Grants in 2024 Photo: Mike Ritter

Empowering Through Giving

For her part, Associate Professor of Economics Laura Gee, who serves on the TCA’s all-volunteer board of faculty and staff, chooses to support student financial aid. 

“I was a recipient of financial aid when I was an undergraduate,” says Gee. “I’m always interested in ways we can expand the number of people at Tufts who are able to attend with the help of financial support.”

Gee’s involvement overlaps with her research interests. As an economist, she focuses on the provision of public goods, studying systems that supply goods and services to anybody, regardless of the recipients’ contributions.

“When I talk to people in the Tufts community about the TCA, they sometimes say, ‘I get my paycheck from Tufts—why would I want to give money back to Tufts from that paycheck?’ says Gee. “I tell them, ‘Hopefully, there’s alignment in the values you and your employer have, and you’re giving to them because they’re in a position to take however much you choose to give and add it to other funds to create a larger grant that could enable real change in an organization.’ It’s a way of making more impactful, larger gifts to the community than you might be able to make on your own.”

Gee points out that one important aspect of the TCA is the freedom it gives to donors to specify how they’d like their contribution distributed. “There’s research that shows donors are more likely to give when they can earmark the thing that they would like their donations to go to,” she notes. “The TCA allows donors to make a gift to any area or program at Tufts that’s important to them, or to give to the surrounding community.”

A Pathway to Belonging

Just as the Elizabeth Peabody House has expanded its reach to meet rising needs, Project Citizenship, another 2024 Tufts Community Grant recipient, is making a difference for immigrants seeking a brighter future. Since 2014, Project Citizenship has provided free legal services to more than 1,000 lawful permanent residents annually, empowering them to achieve U.S. citizenship. In 2024, Project Citizenship was a first-time recipient of a Tufts Community Grant, which funded citizenship services in Somerville, in partnership with the city. 

“Becoming a citizen is about so much more than paperwork,” says Gail Breslow, the organization’s executive director. “It’s about opening doors to economic stability, better healthcare, education, and job prospects. It’s about belonging.” Yet, according to Project Citizenship, only 10% of eligible immigrants in Massachusetts apply to naturalize each year.

The Tufts Community Grant is helping to change that. TCG funding allows Project Citizenship to provide individualized attention, comprehensive case management, and advocacy for clients from around the globe. “This funding helps clients transform their lives through the power of citizenship,” Breslow adds. “We couldn’t do what we do without support like the grant from Tufts.”

Matching Grant Amplifies Impact

Thanks to Cummings Foundation, started in 1986 by Tufts Trustee Emeritus Bill Cummings, A58, H06, J97P, M97P, and his wife, Joyce, H17, J97P, M97P, donations made to the Tufts Community Grants program will have triple the impact this year. For every dollar donated by Tufts faculty and staff during the TCA, Cummings Foundation will match with two dollars, up to $200,000. 

2024 marks the fourth year of the Cummings Foundation and the TCG program partnership in which a matching gift has multiplied internal funds raised during the TCA. The match has incentivized greater employee giving to the Tufts Community Grants program and has transformed the capacity and impact of its grantmaking. Last year, a generous gift from the foundation increased $35K raised for community grants to $105K.

“We’re honored to amplify employee giving once again through Cummings Foundation’s match. Together, we can make a significant difference in supporting local organizations that serve those in greatest need,” said Bill Cummings, A58, H06, J97P, M97P, founder of Cummings Properties and co-founder of Cummings Foundation.

“This matching gift supports the growth of the program’s capacity, enabling Tufts Community Grants to provide more robust support to local nonprofits addressing critical needs in our communities. We’re delighted to help maximize the impact of employee giving through this match.”