News Briefs
  • The Kellogg Foundation has hired MDC to work with its Rural People, Rural Policy initiative, set in five rural policy networks throughout the country. MDC will help grantees further develop their networks and sharpen their skills in bringing about policy change that benefits rural areas. MDC also will design and coordinate peer learning sessions for the initiative.


  • MDC's Emergency Preparedness Demonstration Program (EPD), a joint initiative of MDC and the Center for Urban and Regional Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, has received a year's extension and an additional $500,000 from FEMA so that MDC can take the work into areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.


  • Disconnected youth (young people neither in school nor working) ages 16 to 24 are the subject of an MDC research project, funded by the GlaxoSmithKline Foundation, to gauge the scope of the problem in the Research Triangle area of NC, catalog and assess current programs tackling the problem, and make recommendations.


  • MDC's EITC Carolinas program co-sponsored a news conference January 31 at the NC Legislative Building to inform North Carolinians about the Federal Earned Income Tax Credit and to promote passage of a state EITC to supplement the federal credit.  A state EITC would improve tax fairness and help more than 800,000 low-and moderate-income North Carolinians build wealth and gain economic security.

  • MDC President David Dodson talks about how community foundations can be innovative and effective.  As Southside Virginia continues to undergo economic upheaval, the new Danville Regional Foundation is hoping to use innovative thinking - and $200 million - to transform the Danville area. MDC has been helping the Foundation through a planning process to effectively deploy its resources to aid the community. Listen to a January 25th audio interview with Dodson on WVTF News.
  • MDC's EITC Carolinas has received $75,000 from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and another $75,000 from the Annie E. Casey Foundation to continue and expand its support of community tax campaigns across North Carolina. Additional funding has come from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation to support a joint initiative between EITC Carolinas and the IDA and Asset-Building Collaborative of North Carolina, the nation's first statewide system that supports, encourages, and invests in asset-building among low-wealth individuals. 


  • MDC's and The Duke Endowment's Program for the Rural Carolinas (PRC) has produced such promising results in South Carolina's Lower Orangeburg/Upper Dorchester (LO/UD) counties that the local team has been able to secure $150,000 in state funding to continue its workforce development programs, with the possibility of a second year's state funding if the program continues to have an impact. Better still, the state money is not restricted to the LO/UD geographic area but allows the PRC model to expand to other rural SC areas.  Read more about the LO/UD story.


  • Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a multiyear nationwide initiative to help more community college students succeed, is expanding from seven states to nine in July with the addition of colleges in Pennsylvania and Washington state. Support for the colleges joining the initiative comes from The Heinz Endowments and Education Assistance Foundation of Washington state. Houston Endowment is funding the addition of colleges in Houston, Texas, to the eight Texas colleges already participating. MDC is the managing partner for Achieving the Dream.


  • MDC is providing ongoing help to the Danville Regional Foundation, a health conversion foundation with assets of $250 million. With MDC?s guidance, the Foundation has crafted its vision, mission, and strategic priorities and will be making a series of trips to innovative foundations around the country to learn about their programs.


  • MDC, with the support of the Ford Foundation, launched a new website, www.sncp.us, dedicated to the work of community philanthropy. The site will serve as a virtual meeting space for those working in community philanthropy and contains a discussion board and articles about the experiences of communities as they build bridges across traditional barriers of race, class, culture and gender. Also on the site are articles about how local funders work with nonprofits, policymakers and community leaders to create sustainable communities.


  • The Winter 2006 edition of Lumina Foundation for Education's magazine, Focus, is entirely devoted to community colleges and the Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count initiative. MDC is the lead partner for this multi-year national initiative to help more community college students succeed. Visit the Achieving the Dream website at www.achievingthedream.org.


  • MDC senior associate Colin Austin has been selected as a Marano Fellow of the Sector Skills Academy. The competitive fellowship, supported by the Aspen Institute, provides Fellows working on sector employment projects with leadership development experience. Austin, who directs MDC's Connecting People to Jobs and Latino Pathways programs, is one of 24 Fellows from around the country selected for the one-year fellowship.


  • MDC has been awarded $5.9 million by Lumina Foundation for Education to lead Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count, a national initiative to help more community college students succeed - particularly students of color and low-income students. Thirty-five community colleges in seven states now participate in Achieving the Dream, which is funded by Lumina Foundation, KnowledgeWorks Foundation and Nellie Mae Education Foundation. More colleges may be added in 2006.


  • The Federal Emergency Management Agency has awarded MDC and the UNC Center for Urban and Regional Studies $1.5 million to help develop an emergency preparedness demonstration program targeting disadvantaged communities. The project will last two years and MDC is the lead partner.  See press release.



















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