Since its inception, the Future Fund has made an annual $5,000 grant to support our community. 


This year the Future Fund has awarded a grant to Syracuse Grows, to support their Urban Gardening Capacity Building Initiative. The grant will be used to hire an intern, provide informational materials to schools, host a workshop series and help fund the annual harvest dinner. 

2010's grant was awarded to to Mercy Works, Inc. to support the organization’s seven-week Synergy professional workforce development program. The program provides college students with an opportunity to learn workplace skills by pairing them with local employment in their academic field of study.

The 2009 grant recipient was P.E.A.C.E., Inc., which works to help people in the community realize their potential for becoming self-sufficient. The grant will be used toward providing Money Smart training for low-income participants to include basic banking skills, budgeting, and credit repair.

In 2008 the members of the Future Fund of Central New York awarded a $5,000 grant to the Building Men Program at Levy Middle School, a nonprofit program that captured the spirit of the emerging philanthropists group’s 2008 focus area of supporting, developing and promoting the success of underprivileged teens and pre-teens. The program provides seventh and eighth grade boys a positive model of manhood, teaches compassion and empathy, teaches them to develop positive relationships and helps the students realize their own significance in this world.

In 2007, the grant went to Contact Community Services’ “Living with Teens” parenting program, which promotes health and wellness among teenagers and their parents. The Future Fund grant allowed Contact to pay a parenting educator, purchase healthy refreshments, and offer childcare and other incentives to participants.

2006’s recipient was Catholic Charities for a part of its Refugee Resettlement Program. The Future Fund’s grant supported summer outreach to recent immigrant teenagers, who were invited to learn about American culture and traditions before their first school year.

2005’s grant recipient was Home HeadQuarters, which used the money to support carpenters, contractors, and other building tradespeople attempting to create small businesses as independent contractors. These local entrepreneurs, many of whom are members of ethnic and racial minorities, have the professional skills to run successful home improvement businesses, but lack the back-office structure to keep a business running. The Future Fund grant supported phone systems, advertising, computerized billing systems, and other back-office support for these nascent entrepreneurs.