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Capabilities Brochure | PDF
CGR at 100: A Remarkable Story | PDF
Our Distinguished History
Founded in 1915, CGR has been delivering expert support to the public, nonprofit and private sectors for a century. Originally, we were incorporated as the Rochester (NY) Bureau of Municipal Research, and were established by founder George Eastman with a mandate to “get things done for the community” we call home. Although our passion for delivering promising solutions has never changed, both the geographic area and clients we serve have broadened dramatically. Today we have a national reach and can be found working with a diverse range of agencies, organizations and communities.
Why Nonprofit?
In an arena served almost exclusively by for-profit consultancies, CGR stands apart. Since our founding, we have operated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, a status that insulates us from political bias and holds us accountable to our clients’ true shareholders – the communities they serve – positioning them as more desirable places to live and work.
Just like our clients, we’re in the business of making a difference.
Join us in supporting the Fund for the Public Interest
Every year, with your support, CGR’s Fund for the Public Interest (FPI) makes a difference in our community.
How? As one long-time supporter recently described it, “By providing a world class team of researchers and visionaries the opportunity to be at the table and touch the community’s biggest challenges.” It is, after all, why George Eastman founded CGR more than a century ago.
A host of 2018 projects illustrate the Fund's power. We helped strengthen lead poisoning policies, leverage collaborative opportunities across Rochester's arts and cultural institutions, support regional economic development planning, and optimize philanthropic investments in our community. The Fund provided CGR staff the ability to dig deeper and produce additional independent research on each.
Perhaps the Fund's greatest impact this year came through its support of CGR's report for Reconnect Rochester, Transportation and Poverty in Monroe County: How Land Use, Job Locations and Commuting Options Affect Access to Jobs. The research offered a first of its kind study of the major factors and dynamics at play in the relationship between transportation and our community's persistent rate of poverty and ability to access jobs. It highlighted the extent to which current transportation options pose equity issues for the community, both in terms of race and income. As our community simultaneously seeks to confront poverty, address equity issues and reimagine its transit system, the research offered a stark, relevant and actionable picture for leaders. Alongside critical support from the ESL Charitable Foundation and United Way of Greater Rochester, your support of the Fund made this project possible.
Please join us in supporting the Fund for the Public Interest by clicking here.
Through the Fund, we do amazing things together. But we are keenly aware of the opportunity to do more. More independent research of pressing challenges. More facilitation of informed community dialogues on critical issues. More analysis of cutting-edge policy solutions. And more innovation in how we apply data and information to drive our region forward.
An investment in growing our Fund is an investment that further unleashes the power, innovation and passion of CGR's team on the issues that matter most in our community.
Please join us in supporting the Fund for the Public Interest by clicking here.
Since CGR is a nonprofit organized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, contributions to the Fund for the Public Interest are 100% tax deductible.