The Yates Community Endowment has distributed more than $1 million to nonprofits serving Yates County over 15 years, with its 2026 grantmaking directing $139,000 to 18 organizations.
Residents volunteer to review applications and guide the fund’s priorities, while Rochester Area Community Foundation provides staff support and other resources. This year’s grants also drew support from other Community Foundation funds, according to an Oct. 28 announcement.
The permanent endowment supports education, child care, young people and families, arts and culture, and access to food. Its volunteer advisory committee works with the Community Foundation to direct money toward local needs and gaps in services.
Nancy Rees, who chairs the advisory committee, credited the county’s nonprofit organizations with carrying out the work that the endowment helps fund.
Basic needs and opportunities for residents
The endowment’s grantmaking has two broad priorities: helping residents meet basic needs such as housing, food, utilities and health, and supporting programs that help people thrive. That includes looking at needs across the community and identifying services that are missing.
A 2025 Community Foundation assessment found that families with children and older adults had the greatest need for support in Yates County, according to the announcement. Both groups have long been priorities for the fund.
Among the organizations it has supported are Milly’s Pantry, Yates Community Center, Pennsylvania Yankee Theatre Company and the YMCA. Grants through the YMCA help local young people attend Camp Cory.
The work also extends beyond grants. Community Foundation staff and endowment volunteers analyze local needs, connect nonprofits with other sources of funding and bring organizations together around shared problems.
They helped launch the Yates Food Access Coalition with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Yates County and Yates County Public Health. The coalition was intended to strengthen the emergency food network after SNAP benefits paused in late 2025.
Sara Bukowiec, the Community Foundation’s director of rural community impact, said the endowment’s history reflected sustained contributions from local volunteers and donors to their neighbors’ needs.
From a matching grant to emergency response
The endowment grew from a 2010 conversation between Penn Yan resident Katie Nord Pederson and Rochester Area Community Foundation about expanding charitable resources for Yates County.
In 2011, the Nord Family Foundation of Amherst, Ohio, helped establish the fund with a $100,000 challenge grant that matched contributions dollar for dollar. Fundraising and community support have continued to build the endowment since then.
The fund has also responded to emergencies. After flash floods damaged homes, businesses and roads in 2014, it raised $177,000 in a few months to help those affected.
In 2020, it established the Yates Emergency Relief Fund to support nonprofits during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rees said the Community Foundation’s partnership helped local organizations respond quickly during crises as well as support their regular grantmaking.
“It’s not our normal mode, but it shows how flexible we can be to respond to abnormal things,” she said.
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