(Milford, NH) – With continued emphasis on assisting those in need across New Hampshire and rewarding entrepreneurship, The Finlay Foundation this week proudly announced nearly $80,000 in direct cash awards and challenge grants to more than a half dozen Granite State institutions focusing on education, children and families.

Among the awards were a $25,000 grant to the Child Advocacy Center of Hillsborough County, a Nashua-based nonprofit that provides counseling and pursues justice on behalf of child and family victims of sexual abuse; and a $6,672 grant to the Peterborough Wave Swim Club, matching the amount the youth club was able to collect in private donations during its February Wave-A-Thon fundraiser.

Additionally, the Foundation awarded four $10,000 challenge grants to:
• The Concord-based Institute on Disability for its Leadership Series which provides children and families with disabilities with invaluable advocacy and life skills;
• The Plymouth-based Pemi Youth Center, a safe haven for children offering after-school programming, counseling and activities at no charge;
• The century-plus-old Wilton Public & Gregg Free Library, which is undergoing a full-scale renovation and restoration to its third floor Historical Society Rooms; and
• The Family Center of Peterborough, which offers education, enrichment and employment opportunities for families in need across the Monadnock region.

The Foundation would also offer a $5,000 challenge grant to the Hancock-based Harris Center for Conservation Education to support its ongoing environmental outreach programs for local schools. In the case of each challenge grant, the Foundation has pledged to match all individual and business donations those institutions are able to raise from now through December 31, 2010 up to the specified amounts.

“We have always believed in achieving results through incentives,” Finlay Foundation President Karin Finlay says. “We believe and have found that communities have an eagerness to support local institutions and that, when engaged, will respond favorably, take pride and become invested. Each of these institutions provides a remarkable source of education, stability and enrichment for its community and for families across New Hampshire. They are also blessed to have dynamic leadership. We know these leaders and their communities will embrace this challenge, and we look forward to seeing the approach they take in the months ahead.”

Since 2006, The Finlay Foundation has committed itself by assisting children and families in need and promoting an array of forward-thinking cultural and educational initiatives. The Foundation was created by businessman Robert J. Finlay and his wife Karin to offer future generations opportunities to succeed and to spark a renewed commitment statewide to cultural, civic and community involvement.

The Foundation since its inception has embraced an incentive-based approach to awarding grants, issuing most prominently a statewide Library, Museum and Historical Society Challenge in 2007 that encouraged local institutions to design innovative approaches for attracting new members to their rolls. One hundred institutions took part in that challenge, bringing in more than 31,000 new members statewide, and winning nearly $100,000 in awards from the Foundation.  Last year, the Foundation awarded nearly $300,000 in grants to charities and nonprofits statewide.