PLATINUM2024

Center City District Foundation

Become a part of Philadelphia's success

Philadelphia, PA   |  www.supportccdf.org

Mission

The Center City District Foundation supports the programs of the Center City District (CCD) in order to enhance the quality of life and economic prosperity of downtown Philadelphia, including highly visible and effective improvements that make Center City unique and memorable, enhance recreational and educational opportunities for children, and provide employment for disadvantaged workers.

Ruling year info

1992

President & CEO, Center City District

Ms. Prema Katari Gupta

Main address

660 Chestnut St

Philadelphia, PA 19106 USA

Show more contact info

EIN

23-2701217

NTEE code info

Economic Development (S30)

Environmental Beautification (C50)

Public, Society Benefit - Multipurpose and Other N.E.C. (W99)

IRS filing requirement

This organization is required to file an IRS Form 990 or 990-EZ.

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Communication

Programs and results

What we aim to solve

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

30 years ago, Center City was considered a dark, dirty and dangerous place, a symbol of urban failure. In 1991, inspired by Philadelphia's extraordinary history and a vision of its great potential, a group of business and community leaders came together to revive the downtown by forming the Center City District (CCD). In 1992, the Center City District Foundation (CCDF) was created to test, pilot, and expand the initiatives of the CCD. CCD and CCDF began with a simple but ambitious vision: a clean, safe, and attractive Center City. In the last 30 years Center City has been through an extraordinary transformation. Once neglected, dirty public spaces are now brimming with activity. Downtown Philadelphia has become a thriving employment center, a regional destination for shopping, dining, and the arts, as well as the fastest growing residential neighborhood in the city. CCD and CCDF have facilitated this resurgence, expanding their roles over time to create a vibrant 24-hour downtown.

Our programs

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?

Rail Park Phase I Construction

After breaking ground in October 2016, construction of the first phase of the conversion of the defunct Reading Viaduct into the Rail Park is advancing quickly towards an anticipated completion in January 2018.

Population(s) Served
Adults

The Center City District Foundation is pleased to announce the successful launch of a new initiative, Plant Center City, which has the goal of planting 200 new trees in the central business district .

There are approximately 2,300 street trees within the Center City District’s boundary; 700 of those trees were planted in the 1990s by the CCD, which continues to care for them. The goal of the Plant Center City program is to add 200 more and bring Center City’s total to 2,500 trees.

Research studies on the effects of urban greening have consistently shown that trees offer many measurable and dramatic improvements to cities. They can decrease urban air temperatures, reducing air conditioning bills for homes and businesses; they absorb carbon dioxide and other pollutants, making the air healthier; they add value to adjacent homes and businesses; they reduce stress levels and improve emotional well-being; and they increase pedestrian safety by calming traffic and reducing speeds. Trees make good business sense, too, by creating attractive, pleasant urban environments that attract shoppers and encourage them to stay longer.

Center City District plants mature, hardy 2.5-inch caliper trees that initially stand 12 to 14 feet tall and can withstand harsh urban environments, both extreme heat and cold. Many of the variety of trees planted by CCD are native and include oak, cypress, sycamore and hornbeam. New trees are planted at the times of year that ensure optimal growth – typically May and October.

More than 300 years after William Penn’s founding vision of Philadelphia as a ‘greene countrie towne’ with streets named after trees, we still take pride in his original plan with vibrant civic squares and walkable tree-lined streets. Donors to the Plant Center City program will enable Center City District to sustain Penn’s vision for generations to come.

Population(s) Served
Adults

Located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Logan Square at 18th Street, Sister Cities Park was first dedicated in 1976 in recognition of Philadelphia’s commitment to the international Sister Cities program. Transformed in 2012 by the Center City District from a forgotten space into one of the nation’s leading multi-generational parks, Sister Cities Park is a favorite destination for families with children, school and daycare groups, local workers, seniors and visitors.

Modeled after the winding paths, mountains, and streams of Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley, the park’s Discovery Garden is treasured by children. Sister Cities Park’s Earth Fountain invites spirited play among dancing spouts of water, each jet representing one of Philadelphia’s Sister Cities. A children’s book cart and pint-sized Adirondack chairs provide time for quiet and relaxation. Sister Cities Park is active in the winter months as well, when the pond is converted into an Imagination Playground.

Center City District seeks to build on what makes Sister Cities Park so beloved, retaining the intimate and natural feel of the park while offering new components for unstructured play that engage children from a broader range of ages, encourage safe risk-taking, and activates their imagination. Many of these new additions will be accessible year-round, keeping the park active all year long.

New Children's Discovery Garden Components include a climbing net, push-button water jets, stream dam for more water play, and a Twig Nest for "hiding" or quiet play.

Make your mark on Sister Cities Park and support the expansion of the Discovery Garden! Your investment in Sister Cities Park will spark curiosity and foster creativity in the next generation of Philadelphians.

Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Families

To address the recent, significant increase in panhandling and homelessness on Center City sidewalks, the CCD funded and launched in April 2018 a six-month, sustained, focused and cooperative outreach program in partnership with Project HOME and the Philadelphia Police with strong support from the City’s Department of Behavioral Health. By pairing outreach workers and police, the program helped 134 homeless individuals come off the street and secure appropriate services, while ensuring that everyone complies with local ordinances regarding use of public spaces. Initiated as a pilot program, the effort concluded in mid-November 2018. Due to the program's success, it resumed in April 2019 with double the teams providing outreach efforts on the street.

Population(s) Served
Homeless people

Pulse is a unique and interactive public art experience that is certain to become an iconic part of Philadelphia’s public landscape.

Inspired by Center Square’s history as Philadelphia’s transportation hub and home of the first steam-powered waterworks, Pulse traces in the surface of the fountain the paths of the subway and trolley lines that converge beneath Dilworth Park. As SEPTA trains pass below, four-foot-tall curtains of vibrantly illuminated mist travel across the park fountain’s surface signaling the train’s movement.

A celebration of the location’s rich past, Pulse uses cutting-edge technology to create a living X-ray of the city’s circulatory system with ethereal fog layered in vibrant undulating color, producing what the artist, Janet Echelman, describes as a “physical Rothko painting.”

Pulse is embedded within one of the most popular components of Dilworth Park—the 11,600 square-foot fountain. The fountain features programmable jets that create a dancing water display and interact with the artwork. The scrim of water on the fountain surface not only reflects the ornamented façade of City Hall, but also creates a mirror for Pulse, making the artwork an even more enveloping and immersive experience.

The first phase of Janet Echelman’s innovative and immersive work of public art opened September 2018 and is being enjoyed by more than 30,000 people who visit Dilworth Park each weekday. Phase I—the green line—follows the trolley route that runs beneath the park.


About the Artist
Janet Echelman combines ancient craft with cutting-edge technology to create artworks that have become focal points on five continents in cities from Singapore, Sydney, Shanghai and Santiago to Beijing, Boston, New York and London. Recipient of the Guggenheim, Fulbright, Harvard University Loeb, and Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellowships, Echelman was named an Architectural Digest Innovator for “changing the very essence of urban spaces.”

Echelman received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Visual Arts, honoring “the greatest innovators in America today,” and her TED Talk Taking Imagination Seriously has been translated into 35 languages with more than two million views worldwide. Oprah’s list of “50 Things That Make You Say Wow!” ranked Echelman’s art No. 1.

Population(s) Served
Adults

Where we work

Our results

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.

Number of donations made by board members

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Adults, Children and youth

Type of Metric

Input - describing resources we use

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Context Notes

Center City District Foundation has 100% participation from its board members each year.

Annual Dilworth Park Attendance

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Adults, Children and youth

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Decreasing

Context Notes

Attendance in Dilworth Park has been holding strong for several years but decreased in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19.

Homeless individuals connected with services

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Homeless people

Related Program

Ambassadors of Hope

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Number of trees planted

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Age groups, Ethnic and racial groups

Related Program

Plant Center City

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Context Notes

Plant Center City's goal to plant 200 trees in 2 years has been achieved, but the Center City District continues to add trees where possible and replace trees that have been damaged or died.

Number of trees cared for

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Adults, Children and youth, Ethnic and racial groups

Related Program

Plant Center City

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Holding steady

Free programs offered in CCD parks

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Adults, Children and youth, Ethnic and racial groups, Family relationships

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Decreasing

Context Notes

Decreased in 2020 due to Covid-19

Number of program attendees in CCD Parks

This metric is no longer tracked.
Totals By Year
Population(s) Served

Adults

Type of Metric

Output - describing our activities and reach

Direction of Success

Increasing

Our Sustainable Development Goals

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.

Goals & Strategy

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.

Charting impact

Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.

The Center City District Foundation is the charitable affiliate of the CCD and was created as a 501(c)(3) in 1992 to serve as a conduit for charitable contributions and test new programs and initiatives of the CCD. Capitalizing on the 25th anniversary of the CCD in 2016, the Foundation repositioned itself to become more visible as Center City’s charity of choice for those who seek to sustain the success of Center City and continue to build a more competitive and attractive downtown. In doing so, it assembled a board of directors representative of Center City’s business, residential and civic communities.

Driven by data and the highest standards of planning and community engagement, the Center City District Foundation supports projects and activities that benefit Philadelphia, including highly visible and effective improvements that make Center City unique and memorable, enhance recreational and educational opportunities for children, and provide employment for disadvantaged workers.

After its public launch in 2016, the CCDF adopted a five-year plan that concentrates its fundraising efforts around the following goals:

-Upgrading public spaces and enhancing programming in existing CCD-managed parks,
-Creating signature boulevards and highlighting gateways to Center City,
-Championing new parks within the boundaries of an expanding Center City, and
-Creating employment opportunities for disadvantaged workers.

Specifically, the CCDF is currently focused on raising funds for the following projects:
-Improving amenities and opportunity for play for children in Sister Cities Park,
-Expanding Center City’s canopy of healthy street trees through Plant Center City,
-Connecting people experiencing homelessness with appropriate services through a partnership with Project HOME, the City’s Department of Behavioral Health, and the Philadelphia Police Department in a joint effort called Ambassadors of Hope,
-Installing the public art work, Pulse, more landscape and other enhancements in Dilworth Park

As a Business Improvement District, CCD is uniquely positioned to fund and provide wide-ranging improvements and amenities, allowing us to serve as an intermediary between the private and public sectors and the opportunity to collaborate with a wide array of organizations on projects that create a clean, safe and attractive downtown.

We work with a variety of businesses, organizations, and non-profit partners to fulfill our mission and make real change in Philadelphia a reality. From partnering with Project HOME and the Philadelphia Police on our Ambassadors of Hope program (connecting homeless individuals with services they need), to constructing the Rail Park with the help of the City of Philadelphia's Department of Parks & Rec and the Friends of the Rail Park, Center City District works collaboratively across sectors to achieve high-quality results.

Since 1997, the CCD has financed, raised and invested nearly $150 million to enhance streetscapes and transform underutilized civic spaces into well-managed public places that have broad appeal.

CCD maintains most of its capital investments, routinely cleaning and refurbishing its inventory of 442 pedestrian and vehicular directional signs, 240 transit portal signs at 84 portal entrances, 85 bus shelter map signs and 54 interpretive signs along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The CCD continues to maintain 243 of the 2,189 pedestrian light poles is has installed since 1996 (the remainder are maintained by the Philadelphia Streets Department) as well as the 446 light fixtures on 12 building facades along the Avenue of the Arts, 74 light fixtures illuminating 20 sculptures along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and lighting mounted on surrounding buildings that illuminate the facades of City Hall.

In 2020, the CCD pruned 173 trees out of its total inventory of 903, planted 4,200 bulbs to keep our parks and streetscapes attractive.

The CCD and CCDF raised funds to renovate four parks which it manages: Cret, Sister Cities, John F. Collins and Dilworth. CCDF also raised $11 million for the construction of Phase I of the Rail Park, which opened in June 2018.

As the organization has grown, the Center City District established a department solely dedicated to its parks with staff responsible for maintenance and safety and has added a business development department securing revenue through sponsorships and park rentals in an effort to move the parks toward self-sufficiency. Further, the Center City District is fully staffed with a marketing department who keep CCD’s parks programmed and engaging year-round even amidst a global pandemic. We invited residents to enjoy live entertainment during “Dinner at Dilworth” with takeout from nearby restaurants. We staged small-scale seasonal markets featuring local artisans and hosted performers and a brass quartet from Opera Philadelphia. Working closely with the City’s Health Department, we reconfigured the Wintergarden on the Greenfield Lawn, reimagined the Deck the Hall Holiday Lights display, deployed an open-sided Rothman Orthopedics Cabin and managed the Rothman Orthopedics Ice Rink with time limits, reduced capacity and online-only ticketing.

For 30 years, the Center City District has worked in tandem with the Center City District Foundation to ensure that Center City is clean, safe, and attractive and to serve as a vehicle for private sector research, advocacy and leadership in guiding development and public-private investment in the downtown.

The global pandemic, local stay-at-home mandates and civil unrest created extraordinary challenges for all cities. In Center City, pedestrian volumes initially plummeted by 72%, as office workers, hotel guests, regional shoppers, students, theater and restaurant patrons disappeared. At night, streets were devoid of cars, sidewalks were empty. From the very start in March 2020, we had all of our on-street and park employees designated
“essential workers.” The central lesson from the Center City District’s founding 30 years ago suddenly had renewed resonance: the revival of economic activity and vitality depends upon confidence in a public environment that is clean, safe and attractive.

CCD focused on creating a clean and safe environment and programming its parks, always conscious of health safety guidelines. CCD promoted Center City’s sidewalk level businesses that remained open, encouraging takeout from restaurants, reminding residents across the region through traditional advertising, email newsletters and social media about the unique shops, boutiques and fine dining opportunities downtown.

Well-managed parks and civic spaces are defining public amenities of downtown. To provide safe spaces for social gathering, Center City District expedited repairs to Dilworth Park, turned the fountains on by early summer, frequently cleaned socially distanced seating and programmed activities that restored vibrancy without attracting large crowds.

CCD cleaners power-washed sidewalks and removed graffiti from building facades and street furniture. They painted boarded-up storefronts and installed new artwork on many. CCD commissioned 200 decorative banners created by Philadelphia artists. Our landscape teams planted street trees, filled park flowerbeds with tens of thousands of bulbs and upgraded street lighting.

The Center City District Foundation supported all of these initiatives, dedicating funds raised to sustain the Center City District's on-street and park operations, ensuring that downtown Philadelphia remained vibrant and safe.

How we listen

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.

done We demonstrated a willingness to learn more by reviewing resources about feedback practice.
done We shared information about our current feedback practices.
  • How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?

  • Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?

  • What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?

Financials

Center City District Foundation
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Operations

The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.

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Connect with nonprofit leaders

Subscribe

Build relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.

  • Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
  • Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
  • Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations

Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.

Center City District Foundation

Board of directors
as of 01/31/2024
SOURCE: Self-reported by organization
Board chair

Mr. Gerard H. Sweeney

Brandywine Realty Trust

Richard Vague

Gabriel Investments

John J. Connors

Bricktone Realty Corporation

Michael C. Forman

FS Investments

Paul R. Levy

Center City District Foundation

Jane Scaccetti

Armanino LLP

James L. Paterno

Stockton Real Estate Advisors

Thomas J. Gravina

Evolve IP

Jaimie Field

Audacy

Michelle Hong

Northern Trust

Board leadership practices

SOURCE: Self-reported by organization

GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.

  • Board orientation and education
    Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Not applicable

Organizational demographics

SOURCE: Self-reported; last updated 1/29/2024

Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.

Leadership

The organization's leader identifies as:

Race & ethnicity
Asian/Asian American
Gender identity
Female

Race & ethnicity

Gender identity

Transgender Identity

Sexual orientation

Disability

No data