After more than 24 years of leading The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, President and CEO Will Ginsberg announced his retirement effective November 1, 2024. To mark this milestone, we recently spoke with Ginsberg about The Foundation’s growth and impact as well as its relationship with Women’s Health Research at Yale.
Founded in 1928, New Haven is home to one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the country, with nearly $750 million in assets. In 2023 alone, it made $32 million in grants and distributions, helping fulfill the missions of hundreds of nonprofits in the greater New Haven region.
The long-standing and highly productive partnership between Women’s Health Research at Yale and The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven enables the Center to be keenly aware of the community’s health needs. As importantly, this collaborative relationship ensures Women’s Health Research at Yale’s research findings are shared widely with the community. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Your impact on the Greater New Haven Community over the course of your career – and particularly since you joined The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven at the turn of the millennium – equates to an enduring legacy. What three accomplishments are you most proud of?
When I think back over my years at The Community Foundation we’ve grown a lot, we’ve innovated a lot, and maybe most importantly The Foundation today plays an essential leadership role in the community. When I came to New Haven 40 years ago to work in City Hall for Mayor DiLieto, the leadership landscape was dominated by corporations, manufacturing, utilities, law firms, and real estate development companies. The Community Foundation grew into a leadership role, prioritizing impact and well-being in our city. Our growth is also demonstrated through the dramatic increase of funds, with almost $600 million contributed to The Foundation over the last 23 years.
Specifically, our focus and work in both opportunity and equity has been significant. We’re committed to creating great opportunity for people, creating a more equitable economy and a more equitable society.
Secondly, I am very proud of the decisions and investments that we made during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our donors very generously contributed to our work and the community’s needs during COVID, which enabled The Foundation to shift in fundamental ways. We drew more money from our endowments than ever before, we spent above the normal spending rates for three years, and we changed the way we do business in so many ways to ensure the health and well-being of our community.
And finally, I must point at New Haven Promise, building a college-going culture among young people in New Haven. By providing scholarships for higher education, students return to New Haven ready with the skills necessary to enter the local workforce. I strongly believe that our society will only become more equitable in the way we want it to, in the way we aspire to, when leadership of society is diverse.
Very recently, upon the occasion of your retirement, The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven’s Board of Directors established the Next Generation Fund for Advancing Opportunity and Equity. What do you hope this fund achieves?
Perhaps one of the things that I’m proudest of at The Foundation is that we change with the times, we change as the community changes, change as philanthropy changes, yet stay true to what a community foundation is: being local and taking the long view.
That’s why I’m excited about the Next Generation Fund for Advancing Opportunity and Equity. If we’re going to create a more equitable community and society, we have to be thinking about and cultivating our next generation of leaders. I hope The Community Foundation applies the resources of this fund to address those pressing issues – building greater equity and opportunity in our community while also building more diverse leadership in the next generation. I am grateful to the Board for this lovely gesture and have great confidence that The Foundation will determine good ways to fulfill on this promise.
In June 2001, Women’s Health Research at Yale received its first grant from The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven in support of research on breast cancer and providing practical information to the community about breast cancer. Later that same year, an endowed fund for Women’s Health Research at Yale was established. What compelled you and the team to make the decision to inject resources into Women’s Health Research at Yale so early after its establishment in 1998?
Gender equity has been a cornerstone priority for The Community Foundation since the establishment of the Community Fund for Women and Girls in 1995. But beyond that, one of our Community Foundation colleagues lost his wife to breast cancer, and he was deeply attuned to the issue of women’s health research and the gaps that persisted.
Putting money into an endowed fund was an unusual step for us, as it wasn’t common practice to shift monies from one endowment to another. But the whole team and I felt so compelled to do so, to fund the essential work of Women’s Health Research at Yale in a sustained manner. It was compelling in terms of what the organization was about, it was compelling in terms of Carolyn Mazure’s vision for Women’s Health Research at Yale, and it was compelling to do our part in places where others were falling short at the time, including the federal government.
Women’s Health Research at Yale is a leader, a path breaker, in addressing long-standing imbalances. All of these factors contributed to an investment worth making, and we are so proud of that early investment.
Let’s turn to the economic impact you’ve seen Women’s Health Research at Yale have on Greater New Haven. It’s clear that as the Center has grown, it has brought more dollars for scientific discovery and more jobs to the community. Can you elaborate on the positive economic impact Women’s Health Research at Yale has made on our shared community?
I think it goes back to the way New Haven has changed and evolved over many years. The growth in Yale-based research, particularly biomedical research, is a great asset to our community. Women’s Health Research at Yale is addressing a deep-rooted, long-standing inequity in this regard. In contributing to the research base, our partnership is building assets for a new economy where women’s health research plays an important role.
The dollars that Women’s Health Research at Yale Pilot Project Program investigations bring into the community is a huge multiplier of what’s invested – 20-fold, in fact – and that has significant economic impact in our community. Women’s Health Research at Yale is a major contributor to building a stronger, more equitable, more prosperous community.
As you’re aware, Women’s Health Research at Yale-funded investigators have explored conditions affecting women right here in Greater New Haven, from insomnia to cardiovascular disease to opioid use disorder. From your standpoint as a community leader, why is it important to study and improve the health of our community? And women’s health in particular?
Health is fundamental. We must address the social determinants of health, which are driving health inequities. We must better understand the health impacts, which Women’s Health Research at Yale studies are examining. Research is not only an economic driver, but a driver of great equity. Carolyn Mazure has taught all of us that we’re not going to effectively address women’s health adequately without women’s health research.
In regard to women’s health, we see every day that healthy women mean healthy moms. Healthy moms mean healthy families. And healthy families mean healthy communities. Women’s health is at the center of how you build a healthy community.