Fathers Matter 2001:
What Community Foundations Can Do

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During the last decade community foundations have been at the forefront of local movements to support fathers’ involvement with their children and their communities. With funding from the Annie E. Casey, Danforth, Ford and Charles Stewart Mott foundations, the Coalition of Community Foundations for Youth has supported many of these efforts with seed grants and learning opportunities.

A new CCFY publication, Fathers Matter 2001: What Community Foundations Can Do, outlines strategies community foundations have been using to promote responsible fatherhood and offers numerous concrete ideas and examples that others can use to support fatherhood efforts in their own communities. This edition of Community Building Chronicles presents selected examples from the publication, which was authored by Melody Drummond and Kathy Reich of the Social Policy Action Network.

STRATEGY
Getting the Word Out that Fathers Matter
Recognizing that fathers cannot fully reconnect with families until the public—and fathers themselves—come to understand how important fathers are to their children, the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands (CFVI) is working with clergy to feature sermons about fatherhood on Father’s Day weekend each year at every church, synagogue, and mosque on the islands. In a lighter vein, CFVI printed and gave away T-shirts advertising ten practical tips for fathers—turning those who wore the shirts into walking billboards for father involvement.

STRATEGY
Acting as a Convener and Community Resource
A roundtable on fathers, convened by the Community Foundation for Muskegon County (MI) and attended by 125 community representatives, led to the formation of the Muskegon Responsible Fathers Initiative (MRFI), a consortium of public and private agencies seeking to integrate an emphasis on fathers into the work of schools, courts, and social services organizations.

STRATEGY
Teaching and Supporting Responsible Parenting
The Racine Community Foundation (WI) sponsors a Team Parenting counseling and mediation service to build positive relationships between mothers and fathers and to help parents, including estranged parents, work together to create better outcomes for their children. The foundation has also hosted a luncheon for 200 elected officials and government and community representatives to educate them about the importance of shared parenting by unmarried parents.

STRATEGY
Helping Fathers with Barriers to Work—and at Work
Recent research challenges stereotypes about "deadbeat dads" by suggesting that joblessness—not lack of commitment—is a key reason behind many men’s failure to pay child support. Consequently, programs such as the Hogg Foundation’s Texas Fragile Families Initiative and the Partners for Fragile Families projects supported by the community foundations in Philadelphia and Denver deliver both employment and parenting services, especially for young, unmarried fathers.

Supporting dads in the workforce, the Fathers and Families in the Workplace Certification program of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County (FL) and its partner, the Nurturing Dads Initiative (NDI), encourages businesses to adopt policies and practices that promote responsible fatherhood and better parenting. The project’s goal is to encourage at least 20 local workplaces to adopt at least one father-friendly policy or practice, with the broader aim of creating work environments that support and value workers who are fathers.

STRATEGY
Finding Fudning Sources for Fatherhood Programs
One innovative source of funding for fatherhood programs is the 0.25% sales tax earmarked for substance abuse services in Jackson County, MO, that is also used to support a parenting and employment program operated by the National Center for Fathering through the County prosecutor’s office. Explaining this integration of fatherhood work with the work of the prosecutor’s office, Peter Spokes of the Center, which partners with the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation on this program, says, "This is what we focus on—teaching dads wherever we can teach them."

STRATEGY
Working for Public Policy Reform
Recognizing that for the most part fathers have been excluded or ignored in family policy, the Racine Community Foundation (WI) and its partner, Goodwill Industries, have launched an awareness campaign about public policies to support father involvement. The two organizations hold quarterly community forums to identify policies that help non-custodial fathers become involved with and responsible for their children.