brien-mahoney-volunteer

Brien's Story: Mission City Community Fund

 

He demonstrates the importance of building stronger and healthier communities through community involvement.

January 29, 2021

A tradition of philanthropy is steeped in Roche history, both locally and globally. Encouraging community involvement where employees live and work plays a large role in building stronger and healthier communities. An individual who understands the importance of supporting their community is Brien Mahoney, a communicator for Roche.

Brien has been involved in community relations inside and outside of Roche for decades. In a previous role, he led corporate giving for Roche Molecular Systems, Inc. During his tenure, he ran logistics for the Roche Children’s Walk at multiple sites and has been very involved in children’s and mental health charities in his personal time. 

Roche’s strong support for community-based involvement led to Brien joining the board of directors for the Mission City Community Fund (MCCF) in Santa Clara, California.

The purpose of the MCCF is to support other Silicon Valley nonprofit organizations in serving residents through social services, health care, education, the environment and through theater and the arts through grants and fundraising. The fund was founded in 1986 in response to shrinking federal support for community programs by a group of Santa Clara citizens.

MCCF is completely volunteer-based and maintains no facilities allowing it to have no overhead, which in turn allows all donations to go directly to the many organizations it supports.

Brien’s has an active role in all aspects of governance and voting as a board member. A few responsibilities include review of grant requests, visits to facilities requesting a grant, interviewing organizations and planning fundraising initiatives.

A noteworthy project MCCF funds is Heart2Heart Teens, an organization that helps families with children with school delinquency issues go through a mentoring course to help them establish better learning habits, along with local partnerships. The partnerships include literacy programs, teaching software design with local tech companies and sports at local gym facilities. 

During the shelter-in-place order, Roche opened a COVID employee giving campaign that raised funds to MCCF support the City of Santa Clara by purchasing supplies for the HealthyMeals program. The HealthyMeals program works to distribute approximately 29,000 meals a week to substitute the breakfast and lunch students would normally receive while at school and with the help of Santa Clara County and MCCF an additional four meals per student for the weekend. 

“With all the years in community giving, I’m still amazed and overwhelmed by how we rise up to support our community when there is need," Brien said when asked to comment on the generosity of his colleagues. 

Like other organizations, MCCF is feeling the strains of the pandemic and has had to adapt in order to continue to serve the community. It has seen a decrease in grant requests because many of the organizations provide their services through physical touchpoints. These organizations are having to temporarily suspend programs or rethink how they reach out to recipients. MCCF has been able to shift focus and provide immediate support to food and meal programs, as well as access to COVID-19 testing.

Brien’s largest challenge is planning and practicing new forms of fundraising tailored for a virtual world. Despite the new challenges Brien is confident people will start to pay attention to local agencies again. “Giving lately has shifted to immediate needs impacting the COVID pandemic. I do not think this is a permanent change. Right now, we are working to keep these smaller agencies alive while we wait for the giving community to again turn their attention to the essential services they offer,” said Brien.

A tradition of philanthropy is steeped in Roche history, both locally and globally. Encouraging community involvement where employees live and work plays a large role in building stronger and healthier communities. An individual who understands the importance of supporting their community is Brien Mahoney, a communicator for Roche.

Brien has been involved in community relations inside and outside of Roche for decades. In a previous role, he led corporate giving for Roche Molecular Systems, Inc. During his tenure, he ran logistics for the Roche Children’s Walk at multiple sites and has been very involved in children’s and mental health charities in his personal time. 

Roche’s strong support for community-based involvement led to Brien joining the board of directors for the Mission City Community Fund (MCCF) in Santa Clara, CA.

The purpose of the MCCF is to support other Silicon Valley non-profit organizations in serving residents through social services, health care, education, the environment and through theater and the arts through grants and fundraising. The fund was founded in 1986 in response to shrinking federal support for community programs by a group of Santa Clara citizens.

MCCF is completely volunteer-based and maintains no facilities allowing it to have no overhead which in turn allows all donations to go directly to the many organizations it supports.

Brien’s has an active role in all aspects of governance and voting as a board member. A few responsibilities include review of grant requests, visits to facilities requesting a grant, interviewing organizations and planning fundraising initiatives.

A noteworthy MCCF project MCCF funds is Heart2Heart Teens, an organization that helps families with children with school delinquency issues go through a mentoring course to help them establish better learning habits along with local partnerships. The partnerships include literacy programs, teaching software design with local tech companies and sports at local gym facilities. 

During the shelter in place order, Roche opened a COVID employee giving campaign that raised funds to MCCF to support the City of Santa Clara by purchasing supplies for the HealthyMeals program. The HealthyMeals program works to distribute approximately 29,000 meals a week to substitute the breakfast and lunch students would normally receive while at school and with the help of Santa Clara County and MCCF an additional four meals per student for the weekend. 

“With all the years in community giving, I’m still amazed and overwhelmed by how we rise up to support our community when there is need.” Brien said when asked to comment on the generosity of his colleagues. 

Like other organizations, MCCF is feeling the strains of the pandemic and has had to adapt in order to continue to serve the community. They have seen a decrease in grant requests because many of the organizations provide their services through physical touch-points, these organizations are having to temporarily suspend programs or rethink how they reach out to recipients. MCCF has been able to shift focus and provide immediate support to food and meal programs as well as access to COVID-19 testing.

Brien’s largest challenge is planning and practicing new forms of fundraising tailored for a virtual world. Despite the new challenges Brien is confident people will start to pay attention to local agencies again. “Giving lately has shifted to immediate needs impacting the COVID pandemic. I do not think this is a permanent change. Right now, we are working to keep these smaller agencies alive while we wait for the giving community to again turn their attention to the essential services they offer,” said Brien.