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YORKTOWN, N.Y. The goal of creating a profitable partnership of town and trade was discussed at the YOUnited meeting last Thursday, as the goal of creating a community foundation was the topic of conversation.
The idea, Yorktown Supervisor Michael Grace and YOUnited Chair Bruce Apar said, is to create a community acceleratorsomething similar to a business accelerator to help organizations in Yorktown work well.
The way that we can get the economy back up and the way its best achieved is by building a business community, but not only (one) that takes money from customers, so to speak, but gives back to the community as well, so it becomes a virtuous cycle instead of a vicious cycle, Apar said. What we want to do with this group, YOUnited, is encourage business owners and operators to give back to the community that basically makes their livelihood viable.
Grace spoke of the need to patronize businesses and thank them for the community support they do give by getting their names out there for helping.
Both stressed that the foundation would not compete or replace fundraising that the actual organizations do, it would act as a resource for them.
We are not, and I have to make this really clear and underline it, we are not talking about replacing any of your funding or getting in the way of your donations or your grants or your soliciting money, Grace said.
Grace said he believes the government needs to work as a facilitator for the relationships that need to form between nonprofits and businesses.
It is my hope that over the next couple years, we are going to see some development and redevelopment in the town of Yorktown, Grace said. What we really want to do is build a sense of community that I think is a very important thing to doto build a Yorktown brand. And that means its both businesses, government and the nonprofit charitable organizations all work together.
Next steps for the foundation include the creation of an advisory board. The foundation would specifically help to start new organizations, house organizations so that they dont have to apply for their own 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and apply for and accept grants and donations for organizations.
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