California

The San Diego Foundation has announced that its Chula Vista affiliate awarded grants totaling $55,000 to four nonprofits in support of job skills training, small business loans, and employment opportunities in the community. The recipients are Accion San Diego, Outdoor Outreach, the San Diego Futures Foundation, and South County EDC.

Colorado

The Community Foundation Boulder County has announced that YouthRoots, a nationwide philanthropy program for high school students, will administer the foundation's 15 Forever program, which was established at the foundation in 2006 to encourage and promote civic engagement and leadership among Boulder County youth. In the years since, the youth-driven program has awarded grants totaling nearly $200,000. The program is accepting applications from youth leaders through July 1.

Indiana

The Central Indiana Community Foundation has hired Armon Curd as its new director of information technology. Curd comes to the foundation from Citizens Energy Group, where he served as eCommerce manager in the corporate affairs department.

Massachusetts

The Cape Cod Foundation has announced that the Falmouth Fund has received a $100,000 gift from the Willett Foundation Fund. To mark the Falmouth Fund's tenth anniversary in 2019, half the gift will underwrite grants to local organizations, while the rest will establish the Willett Foundation Fund Challenge, a dollar-for-dollar matching challenge launched at the beginning of June in support of the fund's goal of building a permanent endowment that makes an immediate difference in Falmouth residents' lives and supports future generations.

New Hampshire

The New Hampshire Charitable Foundation has announced that James C. Vara, chief of staff and associate attorney general at the New Hampshire Department of Justice, as the 2018 recipient of the Caroline and Martin Gross Fellowship, which was established in memory of the late Caroline Gross, a former majority leader of the New Hampshire House, and the late Martin Gross, a former mayor of Concord. The fellowship honors an elected or appointed official in New Hampshire state or local government who demonstrates leadership ability and the highest standards of performance in public service.

Ohio

The Columbus Foundation has announced the participants of its summer fellowship program. Now in its ninth year, the program matches college students, recent college graduates, and graduate students with nonprofit organizations in central Ohio for a ten-week period over the summer, with fellows receiving a $6,000 stipend for their work.

Pennsylvania

The Pittsburgh Foundation has announced that it is partnering with the Heinz Endowments on a conference that will explore the First Amendment guarantees covering freedom of religion, expression, the press, public assembly, and government petition. Headlining the event, which will be held June 21-22, will be April Ryan, White House correspondent and Washington, D.C., bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, and Mickey Edwards, a former Republican member of Congress representing Oklahoma's 5th congressional district and now vice president of the Aspen Institute and lecturer at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Poverty in Erie County has increased over the last decade, especially among children, a study conducted on behalf of the Erie Community Foundation and the Nonprofit Partnership finds. An initiative of the foundation, Erie Vital Signs found that the county's population is getting older, that manufacturing jobs declined 35 percent between 2001 and 2016, and that household incomes, when adjusted for inflation, are down 11 percent. At the same time, the analysis found that county residents' access to health care has improved, that participation in pre-kindergarten programs has risen from 15 percent in 2007 to 34 percent in 2016, and that the overall mortality rate in the county has declined, though not as much as in the state or the nation.

Washington

The Seattle Foundation has announced that it received a two-year, $65,000 grant from the Brainerd Foundation to deepen its work on environmental and conservation issues. The foundation is using the grant to launch a Conservation Champions program focused on deepening staff knowledge of threats to the regional environment and interdisciplinary ways of approaching them, as well as donor education efforts with respect to its conservation activities. Brainerd is a private family foundation that provides funding and expertise to nonprofits, communities, and decision makers in the Northwest working to protect the region's air, land, and water. 

Washington, D.C.

The Greater Washington Community Foundation has announced that its Greater Washington Workforce Development Collaborative initiative is investing in five local community-based organizations working to help D.C. residents get the skills and training they need to secure meaningful employment. The funded programs will offer training in a range of industries, including hospitality, IT, healthcare, education, and the construction trades. Grant recipients include the Academy of Hope Adult Public Charter School, Community Services Agency of Metro Council AFL-CIO, the Literacy Lab, Literacy Volunteers and Advocates, and New Futures.