Heartland Center Expands Role with Hitachi Foundation

After serving as a Learning Partner for the Life Skills/Work Skills cluster of grantees for the Hitachi Foundation, the Center has been asked to expand that role to two additional Hitachi initiatives. As Learning Partner, the Heartland Center staff maintains contact with grantee organizations, acts in a coaching role via telephone, email and site visit contacts, including a new electronic newsletter for grantees. Other Learning Partners include the Heller Graduate School at Brandeis University and the Ray Marshall Center at the University of Texas in Austin. The additional grantees that are now part of the Center's role as Learning Partner include organizations that focus on Global Corporate Citizenship and Making Work Work, which has an emphasis on workforce development projects. This will be in addition to the current initiative that has a focus on youth entrepreneurship.

The Heartland Center staff also works on agenda development for a series of annual institutes for grantees. This fall, grantees from all three initiatives will convene in San Rafael, California, for a three-day event that will feature a variety of discussion groups, peer learning and concurrent sessions on specialized topics such as developing business partnerships, social entrepreneur approaches for nonprofits, and using a program logic model for evaluation. Center staff conducted a survey with grantees to assess interest in topics for the institute.

Since organizations/grantees in these three initiatives are located nationwide, considerable time will also be spent helping individuals get acquainted and learn about their peers. Heartland Center staff skills will be brought into play by designing and conducting a variety of activities that will enhance this type of information exchange in a large group setting.

The Hitachi Foundation is a nonprofit, philanthropic organization incorporated in the District of Columbia in 1985 with an endowment from Hitachi, Ltd. in Tokyo. The Foundation was established to promote social responsibility through effective participation in global society.