PROVIDENCE – Project Weber/RENEW is getting a seven-figure financial boost from the former wife of Amazon.com Inc. founder Jeff Bezos, and it arrived at the perfect time for the organization.
The local organization that provides peer-led harm reduction and recovery support services has received a $1 million gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott from her Yield Giving Open Call. The initiative announced on Tuesday that it has distributed $640 million to 361 nonprofits across the U.S. within communities experiencing significant needs.
Project Weber/RENEW is the lone Rhode Island-based organization that received a grant from Scott in this round. Project Weber/RENEW spokesperson Amanda Roman told Providence Business News on Wednesday that the grant from Scott “could not have come at a better time” for the organization.
Roman said COVID-19 support funding and opioid settlement dollars are drying up, and some of the organization’s critical programming was facing a “potential funding cliff” with demand for those services remaining high. One program that was at risk of being cut was Project Weber/RENEW’s recovery housing program, which provides comprehensive case management, peer-recovery support, and direct financial payments for housing to individuals who are interested in entering recovery housing.
That program recently celebrated placing more than 1,000 individuals into recovery housing within the last three years, Roman said. But Project Weber/RENEW, Roman said, had to drastically decrease the number of individuals the organization could provide recovery housing for due to funding for the program running low.
Now, the funds, Roman said, will be used to provide retention and longevity bonuses for Project Weber/RENEW staff who worked to address the overdose crisis, to create a reserve fund to secure the organization’s future and to sustain its current programs that were “in danger of being cut,” including the recovery housing program. She also said the nonprofit will also use some of the funding as seed funding for its capital campaign to support the purchase and rehabilitation of the overdose prevention center and new Providence drop-in center, as well as funding to purchase a permanent home for Project Weber/RENEW’s Pawtucket/Central Falls program.
“We have been working diligently to try and raise funds to fill those gaps, and we’re just happy that it’s worked out,” Roman said.
Other local organizations in the past had received grant monies from Scott. Among them was Planned Parenthood of Southern New England receiving $17 million back in 2022. In 2020, the United Way of Rhode Island Inc.
received $10 million from Scott, which was utilized for both supporting the organization’s long-term goals and
promoting racial equity.
The Providence Community Health Centers Inc. last year received $9 million from Scott to further support the nonprofit’s efforts to provide community health care to those in need.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
