Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE) awarded $225,000 Cummings grant

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Mardi Fuller, Director of External Relations, Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE), 617-275-0782, mfuller@bpe.org

Contact: Alison Harding, Cummings Foundation, 781-932-7093, aeh@cummings.com 

Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE) awarded $225,000 Cummings grant

Roxbury nonprofit receives 3 years of funding from Cummings Foundation

Roxbury, June 15, 2023 – Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE) is one of 150 local nonprofits that will share in $30 million through Cummings Foundation’s major annual grants program. The Roxbury-based organization was selected from a total of 630 applicants during a competitive review process to receive $225,000 over three years.

BPE’s mission is to drive exceptional outcomes for all students by developing great teachers and great schools. In 2003, BPE launched the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR), which recruits, trains, and supports the retention of educators in Boston. Through our two Teaching Academies, Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School (grades PreK-5) and Dearborn STEM Academy (grades 6-12), BPE provides students in the Dudley neighborhood of Roxbury with an outstanding neighborhood-based, educational pathway within the Boston Public Schools (BPS).

“The grant from the Cummings Foundation is a huge vote of confidence in Boston students, families and educators,” said BPE Executive Director Jesse Solomon. “This funding will support our students to be prepared to enter a purposeful, wealth-building career within six years of their high school graduation.”

BPE will use the support from the Cummings Foundation to expand career pathways programming into middle school, preparing students even earlier with the skills needed for college and career success.

The Cummings $30 Million Grant Program primarily supports Massachusetts nonprofits that are based in and serve Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk counties. 

Through this place-based initiative, Cummings Foundation aims to give back in the areas where it owns commercial property. Its buildings are all managed, at no cost to the Foundation, by its affiliate, Cummings Properties. This Woburn-based commercial real estate firm leases and manages 11 million square feet of debt-free space, the majority of which exclusively benefits the Foundation.

“The way the local nonprofit sector perseveres, steps up, and pivots to meet the shifting needs of the community is most impressive,” said Cummings Foundation executive director Joyce Vyriotes. “We are incredibly grateful for these tireless efforts to support people in the community and to increase equity and access to opportunities.”

The majority of the grant decisions were made by about 90 volunteers. They worked across a variety of committees to review and discuss the proposals and then, together, determine which requests would be funded. Among these community volunteers were business and nonprofit leaders, mayors, college presidents, and experts in areas such as finance and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion).

“It would not be possible for the Foundation to hire the diversity and depth of expertise and insights that our volunteers bring to the process,” said Vyriotes. “We so appreciate the substantial time and thought they dedicated toward ensuring that our democratized version of philanthropy results in equitable outcomes that will really move the needle on important issues in local communities.”

The Foundation and volunteers first identified 150 organizations to receive three-year grants of up to $225,000 each. The winners included first-time recipients as well as nonprofits that had previously received Cummings grants. Twenty-five of this latter group of repeat recipients were then selected by a volunteer panel to have their grants elevated to 10-year awards ranging from $300,000 to $1 million each.

This year’s grant recipients represent a wide variety of causes, including housing and food insecurity, workforce development, immigrant services, social justice, education, and mental health services. The nonprofits are spread across 46 different cities and towns.

Cummings Foundation has now awarded $480 million to greater Boston nonprofits. The complete list of this year’s 150 grant winners, plus nearly 1,500 previous recipients, is available at CummingsFoundation.org. 

About Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE)

Boston Plan for Excellence (BPE) operates two Boston public schools: Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School and Dearborn STEM Academy, which form a PreK-12 STEM pathway for the Dudley neighborhood of Roxbury. BPE also runs Boston Teacher Residency, a clinical model for preparing teachers for the Boston Public Schools. Dearborn STEM Academy is an innovation pathway and STEM Tech Career school whose STEM career pathways model ensures that all students, especially those under-represented in college and high skill, high demand careers, will have clear opportunities for success. Our program provides our students with access to STEM education aligned to industry skills and standards, matched with Early College and internship experiences that will help students transfer learned classroom skills into authentic college and career experiences.  To learn more, visit bpe.org , follow us on Twitter @ BPE_Boston or Instagram @BostonPlanforExcellence 

About Cummings Foundation

Woburn-based Cummings Foundation, Inc. was established in 1986 by Joyce and Bill Cummings of Winchester, MA and has grown to be one of the largest private foundations in New England. The Foundation directly operates its own charitable subsidiaries, including New Horizons retirement communities, in Marlborough and Woburn, and Cummings Health Sciences, LLC. Additional information is available at CummingsFoundation.org.