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Vanguard’s Hometown Grants Program
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The Vanguard’s Hometown Grants Program supports local human service needs and contributes to the vibrancy of the regions of Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina and London that Vanguard calls home.
It is funded by the Vanguard Group Foundation and run by a committee of Vanguard volunteers. These committees develop strategies for support based on a collaborative selection process to determine the most effective organizations with the highest impact through financial reporting analysis, tangible assessment of how the money was spent and testimonials.
Since the inception of the Hometown Grants Program in 2018, Vanguard has provided support to over 200 unique organizations worldwide.
We recently sat down with site leads across our regions to learn more about their personal experiences with the program. Here is what they had to say:
One of the most rewarding aspects of being a Vanguard Hometown Grants volunteer has been realizing the positive enrichments we’ve made around the Phoenix Metropolitan area. After growing up in one of the lowest income neighborhoods in Phoenix, it’s touching to be able to give back to those with the greatest needs in my community. Additionally, serving the committee amid the pandemic has only further exacerbated the needs of our community, including increased homelessness, food insecurity and mental illness rates. With this in mind, we pivoted our strategy to focus on new and existing organizations that could maximize their donations and influence across the valley.
Working as a project analyst at Vanguard has enhanced my volunteer work as a Hometown Grants Investment Committee member, as I am able to deeply explore the financial strength and impacts of an organization and strategically advocate on their behalf. In fact, three of my researched organizations were chosen for funding out of five rigorous and competitive funding cycles.
During the time serving on our investment committee, Arizona Hometown Grants has supported 15 impactful organizations focused on adolescent mental and physical health, homelessness and arts and culture.
It has been extremely rewarding to serve Vanguard’s committed enrichment of our communities and I have been humbled to observe the crucial work of these amazing non-profit organizations.
– Suzanne V.
I was drawn to the Hometown Grants Program as I was interested in leveraging the skills that I had gained in my professional auditing career to make a positive difference in our local community. Further, curiosity and a willingness to learn more about the charity sector only increased the appeal to get involved. The Hometown Grants Program would ultimately put my analytical skills to work, while providing the opportunity to network and collaborate with other Vanguard crew and local charity partners.
As a member of the Hometown Grants Committee, I have really enjoyed all aspects of the work and the committee meetings are the highlight of my week! I joined during the early stages of the pandemic in April 2020. The first thing we did was refresh our grant-making strategy, and I learned a lot by helping with the research and analysis to understand the areas of enduring need in our local community, as well as the areas of pressing need that had spiked as a result of the pandemic. Tackling youth violence, mental health and rough sleeping are core to our approach. We also added a new gift strategy to address issues related to domestic violence, which has unfortunately increased during the pandemic.
I have also had the opportunity to get involved in initiatives to improve our governance and processes for our Hometown Grants UK Committee, such as improving our grant evaluation process to better monitor the success that we are able to achieve with charity partners.
Mostly, I appreciate the robust discussions and debates that we have as a committee, and I have learned a lot from my fellow members, as we are a diverse and supportive group that is not afraid to challenge each other to ensure we achieve the best outcomes.
My biggest takeaway in serving the program is this: It’s important to take the time to be clear (in our investment policy) about the approach and criteria for prioritizing the charities that we partner with. This helps the selection, filtering and due diligence process, and also enables us to have good conversations with these charities about how best to target our funding. Evaluating the impact that our funding has made is also interesting and rewarding to do.
– Jack W.
