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Moving the Cheese
by Don Matteson, Chief Program Officer 2016-July 14 For those who don't follow the reference in the title, take a look at the Wikipedia entry for Who Moved My Cheese? We've been getting a lot of phone...
View ArticleIntroduction to the Tower Foundation's Revised Grant Process
by Don Matteson, Chief Program Officer 2016-October 12 As you might recall from our earlier blog post, the Tower Foundation is changing its grantmaking process and deadlines starting in 2017. In this...
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What's the Difference between the Preliminary Request and the Full Proposal?
We've introduced some changes we're making to our grants process and described the grant review process and time line, so we thought we'd go a little deeper into the Core Programs and Services grant...
View ArticleGrantee Relationships
2016-November 7 Over the past few years, we've been working on being less of a "transactional" grantmaker (i.e., paper-pushers) and more of a "relational" grantmaker (i.e., human beings working with...
View ArticleImplications of Grantmaking Changes for Grant Applications
2016-December 7 Nick Randell, Program Officer, describes what some of the upcoming grantmaking changes mean for grant applicants. He also spends a few minutes answering some of the questions that our...
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Preliminary Capacity Building Survey Findings
For the past couple of years, we at The Tower Foundation have been doing a lot of thinking about capacity building. I'm here to remind you today that amidst all of the other exciting changes going on...
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Guest Blog: Studio Support at Daemen College - Creativity and Neurodiversity
Five years ago, Daemen College added a B.F.A. program in Animation and a B. S. in Applied Theater to its Department of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA). With the increase of students and the addition...
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Reflections on a Revised Grants Process
The dust has pretty much settled on our first adventure with our revised grantmaking process. With the benefit of some time to reflect, we thought it might be informative to share what we've seen and...
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Blogging the Grantmakers in Health Conference -- Boston, MA (June 21-23, 2017)
I've gotten in the habit of turning attendance at the Grantmakers in Health (GIH) Conference into a blog post, so here we go for a third installment, this year held in Boston. Notably, the conference...
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The Tower Foundation is Coming to You!
2017-July 17 We're trying something a little bit different (for us, anyway). We're heading out into the community and holding open "office hours" throughout the counties we fund. We'll be in (or...
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Join the Conversation: An Anti-Stigma Campaign
Just a few days ago, Chuck and I stopped off for a celebration at a downtown Buffalo restaurant. The celebration toasted almost two years of hard work from a coalition of Erie County-based behavioral...
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Making every word tell: What we're looking for in our grant submissions
Don Matteson, Chief Program Officer 2017-August 24 Now that we've wrapped up our second round of grants under our revised process and finished our second grant applicants survey, it's time to take a...
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American Association of Intellectual Disabilities (AAIDD) 2016 Conference
Last June, I attended the American Association of Intellectual Disabilities (AAIDD) Annual Conference, held in Atlanta, Georgia. Georgia is commonly referred to as the "Peach State." Of course I made...
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The Tower Foundation is Coming to You (Again)!
2017-November 16 by Don Matteson, Chief Program Officer Well, we're at it again. Our summer "office hours" were pretty popular, so we thought we'd give it another shot in advance of our January 2018...
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Making Things just a Little Easier for Grantees
2017-December 7 by Don Matteson, Chief Program Officer One day last week, Chuck popped his head into my office. He told me that he'd just finished up a videoconference with one of our grantees. They...
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In Appreciation of the "Real Heroes"
A few months ago, I attended an awards ceremony at the Dale Association. It was a great event with plenty of tasty desserts. The Foundation was among eight honorees recognized for their service to the...
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2018 . . . It's Here!
2018, January 2 Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday. Over the years, I have come to appreciate the holidays more and more. I no longer find myself getting frazzled about what needs to...
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The Tower Inquisition
A screening call? A clarification call? Which is it? WHAT is it? I just toiled over a preliminary application for you - what more could you possibly need from me??? What is this, torture? 2018-January...
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