Community Foundation pledges $1 million to support Say Yes Syracuse

SYRACUSE — The Central New York Community Foundation (CNYCF) today announced its board of directors voted to renew its $1 million commitment to the Syracuse chapter of Say Yes to Education, called Say Yes Syracuse.

The gift continues the Community Foundation’s annual support of the Say Yes tuition promise, the nonprofit said in a news release.

The Community Foundation made its first $1 million pledge in 2009, and the pledges conclude in 2014, according to the CNYCF.

The pledge represents the largest investment the organization has ever made to a communitywide initiative, the Community Foundation said.

The financial commitment provides $200,000 per year to pay for Say Yes scholarships while the organization builds an endowment to fund the scholarships permanently.

The CNYCF board “quickly” recognized the potential of Say Yes to “galvanize” the community around education reform and economic development, Peter Dunn, president & CEO of the Community Foundation, said in the news release.

“The tuition promise is at the core of the Say Yes model, an incentive for students to persevere toward graduation and reinforce the message that college is a realistic and affordable option. We felt it was a priority to make that promise a reality for the first graduating class and those that followed,” Dunn said.

In 2011, SRC, Inc. committed $5 million in matching dollars to launch an endowment campaign. To date, Say Yes Syracuse has raised 70 percent of the funds required to complete the match, CNYCF said.

The ultimate goal is to build a $20 million endowment that the Community Foundation will manage to provide a “perpetual” source of scholarship dollars, according to the organization.

In addition to overseeing the investment of the Say Yes endowment funds, the Community Foundation works closely with Say Yes to administer the scholarship program and distribute “last-dollar aid” to colleges on behalf of the scholarship recipients, CNYCF said.

The Say Yes Scholarship Endowment campaign has attracted significant funding from a number of foundation, corporate, and individual donors, the Community Foundation said.

The donors include the Allyn Foundation, a private family foundation based in Skaneateles Falls; the DeWitt–based Dorothy and Marshall M. Reisman Foundation; and Clay–based Raymour & Flanigan Furniture, which have each committed $500,000 toward the endowment, CNYCF said.

Neil Goldberg, president of Raymour & Flanigan, co-chairs the campaign with Allen Naples, regional president of M&T Bank.

M&T was an early donor to the effort with a gift of $100,000, according to CNYCF.

Say Yes Syracuse is a collaboration that brings together the Syracuse City School District, Syracuse University, the Syracuse Teachers Association, the Syracuse Association of Administrators and Supervisors, the city of Syracuse, Onondaga County, and the Washington, D.C.–based American Institutes for Research, which describes itself as “one of the world's largest behavioral and social-science research organizations” on its website.

The collaboration also involves a diverse group of Syracuse–area corporate, nonprofit, and philanthropic organizations, and a number of public and private higher-education partners, according to the Community Foundation.

Established in 1927, the Central New York Community Foundation is the largest charitable foundation in the region with assets of more than $143 million, the organization said.

It awarded $8.3 million in grants last year to nonprofit organizations and since its inception has invested more than $120 million in the community, according to its website.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com