A new survey shows community foundations are continuing to recover from the economic downturn. Assets rose last year, as did the amount community foundations gave away to local causes and the sums they raised from donors. The survey of more than 250 community foundations, including 99 of the 100 largest, shows the organizations grew by 13 percent on average last year, compared with a 12-percent decline in 2009.

They are also growing faster than private foundations. Median asset growth was 10.1 percent for the 97 large U.S. community foundations that participated in the Columbus Survey in both 2009 and 2010. That compares with median asset growth of 3.4 percent last year for the largest U.S. foundations responding to a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy survey.

Read about the work being done by communty foudantions across the nation

http://www.utahcf.org/about/what-is-a-community-foundation/the-work-of-community-foundations

Community foundations across the nation are hard at work supporting their communities in creative ways, Learn more about what our community foundation can become! Click over to this part of our web site

Each month we post examples of the terrific work being done by community foundations in communitites large and small across the nation.

Art/ literature

• The Cleveland Foundation has announced the winners of the seventy-fifth annual Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize. Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie won in the fiction category for Burnt Shadows, nonfiction writer William Julius Wilson was recognized for More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City, and Elizabeth Alexander (poetry) and Oprah Winfrey were honored with lifetime achievement prizes. The foundation has administered the prizes, which represent the only juried American literary competition devoted to recognizing books that have made an important contribution to society's understanding of racism and the diversity of human cultures, since 1963.
• The Philadelphia Foundation has announced the opening of its new exhibit, "See Change: Photographs From the Leeway Foundation," at the Community Gallery. The exhibit, features artwork created by women and transgender artists who create art for social change and have received Leeway Foundation grants and awards.

Community development / parks

• The San Diego Foundation has announced that it is working with the Mission Bay Park Endowment Fund, the La Jolla Community Foundation, and San Diego Council members to assure the preservation of the fire pits in the city of San Diego for the next fiscal year.
• The Dayton Foundation and the City of Kettering announced the grand opening of Kettering's Pondview Park. Described as the first self-guided environmental park in Ohio designed for people of all abilities to experience and learn about nature, the park received a 2007 grant of $426,000 from the foundation to enhance access and educational experiences for individuals with disabilities.

Poverty

• The Portland-based Oregon Community Foundation made 8 grants totaling $786,000 from to Oregon nonprofits working to reduce poverty among people with low incomes through asset- and wealth-building strategies. Made possible by an initial Northwest Area Foundation grant to OCF, the eight grants will fund minority business development, individual development account savings programs, increased access to credit and small business loans, and green jobs training opportunities. Recipients include the Oregon Microenterprise Network, ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia, the Portland Development Commission, the Community and Shelter Assistance Corporation of Oregon, the Umpqua Community Development Corporation, the Native American Youth and Family Center, Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives, and Entrepreneurial Development Services.

General grant making

• The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham made grants totaling $764,000, to arts organizations, in support of education, to environmental groups, to health organizations, human services, for community support initiatives, and $75,000 for other initiatives. Recipients include the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham, Pleasant Mount Baptist Church, and the Middle Alabama Agency on Aging.
• The Charlotte-based Foundation for the Carolinas made grants totaling $586,150 through its Critical Need Response FundCreated in 2008 in response to the economic downturn, the fund has distributed nearly $4 million to assist the needy.

How CFs are raising endowments / funds

• The Rasmuson Foundation has announced that it will match $50,000 in new contributions pledged to the Petersburg Community Foundation. Established earlier this decade as an affiliate of the Anchorage-based Alaska Community Foundation, PCF has raised approximately $200,000 to help improve the lives of vulnerable populations and strengthen area recreation and safety programs.
• The Maine Community Foundation has announced that all nineteen of its 25/25 Nonprofit Endowment Challenge partners have met their $25,000 fundraising match requirement. The challenge, in which MCF awarded challenge grants to nonprofits in Oxford, Franklin, Somerset, Piscataquis, Aroostook, Washington, and Hancock counties to establish permanent endowments or expand existing endowments, was launched in 2008 to help celebrate the foundation's twenty-fifth anniversary.
• The Community Foundation of Greater Memphis ended its fiscal year on April 30 with $290 million — up from $247 million the prior year, due primarily to yearly returns of 33.8 percent on its balanced fund and 49.9 percent on its equity fund.

Youth

• The Fingerprints Youth Museum has received grants totaling $12,000 from the Community Foundation Serving Riverside and San Bernardino Counties and Southern California Edison to support exhibits designed to help parents and children learn how to combat childhood obesity.

Disaster funds / oil spill

• The Imperial Valley Community Foundation created a Regional Disaster Fund to raise funds and assist recovery efforts in the Imperial Valley, which experienced a magnitude 7.2 earthquake in April that adversely affected hundreds of families and thousands of residents. The fund is working to raise $1 million, which will be awarded to organizations that provide disaster relief services in the area.
• The Greater New Orleans Foundation announced a $50,000 grant to the Seedco Financial Southeast Louisiana Fisheries Assistance Center in Belle Chasse — the first grant from the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund — to support critical services for fishermen affected by the worst oil spill in U.S. history. In the coastal parishes of Louisiana most affected by the oil spill, there are more than 6,400 licensed commercial fishers, many of whose families have been fishing for generations. More than four hundred clients have accessed the center's services because of the oil spill and additional clients are seeking support every day.
• The Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice announced a $60,000 grant to help Mote Marine Laboratory respond to potential impacts from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. Mote will use the grant to begin its efforts in five areas: sampling of water, sediments, bottom-dwelling organisms, and sea grass; mollusk sampling; patrolling of coastal areas by underwater robots; phytoplankton sampling; and creating a detailed oil response plan that covers a number of different scenarios.
• A benefit concert for flood relief raised more than $1.8 million for the Nashville-based Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, Musicians included Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Tina McBride, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Lynyrd Skynyrd.
• The Florence-based Eastern Carolina Community Foundation has established the Pee Dee Disaster Relief Fund to help victims of the recent Darlington tornado and future natural disasters, SC Now reports. The fund will complement the work of other area nonprofits, which it will support with grants across county and jurisdictional lines.

Parenting

• The Oregon Community Foundation launched of the Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative, a multiyear initiative designed to support parenting education programs in the state. Funders include OCF, the Meyer Memorial Trust, and the Whipple Fund and Crane Creek Fund of OCF. The collaborative will support parents in their role as children's first and most important teachers by helping communities build stronger, more coordinated parenting education services. Grants of $80,000 to $90,000 per year will support regional parenting education "hubs"

New CF success!

• In its first year the Laguna Beach Community Foundation awarded $80,000 in grants to twenty organizationsThe awards, which ranged from $1,000 to $10,000, included several for general operating support rather than specific program support. Over the next three years, the foundation hopes to award $1 million to local nonprofit groups.

Scholarships

• The Santa Barbara Foundation announced the recipients several scholarships. One scholarship gives students $2,000 as well as $500 to give to a charity of their choice.
• The Fairfield Community Foundation has awarded more than $85,000 in scholarships ranging from $250 to $2,500 this spring. The foundation also added three $1,000 scholarships this year: the Martha M. Tipton Memorial Scholarship; the AA Plumbing Go Green, for a student interested in enrolling in trade school; and the Fairfield Women Scholarship.

Gay Field of Interest Fund established in Chicago

• The Chicago Community Trust has announced a grant of $500,000 and a $200,000 challenge and operating grant from the Elizabeth Morse Charitable Trust to establish the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community Fund. The fund, which will become operational when a minimum of $1 million is raised, will provide support for a broad range of needs related to improving the quality of life for LGBT individuals and their families in the Chicago region. Fundraising will be led by a steering committee whose twelve members have committed to raising or giving at least $60,000 over three years.

Civic engagement field of interest fund

• The Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Foundation’s  Front Porch Grants program supports neighborhood associations, social clubs, school groups, and other civic organizations. Named to honor everyday places where people can meet and begin to build relationships, the fund provides up to $2,500 to support small-scale gatherings that foster the exchange of ideas, experiences, and/or actions.

Environment

• The Dayton Foundation runs Greater Dayton Partners for the Environment. An initiative launched by the foundation in 2009, Greater Dayton Partners is an alliance of environmental, government and civic organizations, and public and private educational institutions working to protect, restore, preserve, and promote the greater Dayton region's natural resources.
• Consider Biking has announced a three-year grant of $295,451 from the Columbus Foundation to help launch its "2 by 2012" campaign to increase and incentivize the use of active bicycle transportation in the central Ohio region. The goal of the campaign is to get as many citizens as possible to bike to work two days per week by 2012, which is the city's bicentennial. Columbus is home to approximately five thousand bike commuters; Consider Biking hopes to more than double that figure in time for the bicentennial celebration.

The diversity and impact of our sister organizations is updated each month on this web site. See why we think the Community Foudnaiton fo Utah is a must for our state as well!

Scholarships

-         The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving will offer scholarships over three years to Hartford-area high school seniors who pursue an education and job training at a community college;

Endowment growth

-         The Lexington Area Community Foundation, an affiliate of the Charlotte-based Foundation for the Carolinas, successfully met its goal of growing its endowment by more than $11,000.

-         The Women's Fund of Central Indiana, a special-interest fund of the Indianapolis-based Central Indiana Community Foundation, has successfully completed a campaign to raise $7 million for its endowment.. The fund focuses its giving in three areas: access to quality child care, eliminating domestic violence, and building sufficient incomes for women.

-         The Providence-based Rhode Island Foundation has announced that Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and the RIGHA Foundation will transfer their grantmaking operations to the community foundation and establish a permanent endowment, the RIGHA Foundation Fund. The $1.6 million fund will become a permanent endowment supporting the foundation's efforts to promote the development of a successful and effective primary healthcare system in the state. In addition, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, which acquired RIGHA in 1990, will make annual payments to the RIGHA Foundation Fund at the Rhode Island Foundation.

Grant making

-         The Dallas Community Foundation has awarded grants totaling $50,000 to eighteen organizations.

-         The Vermont Community Foundation has announced $281,250 in grants to sixty organizations.

-         As part of the second-annual Martin County Community Foundation Giving Day, seventy-four local organizations helped raise a total of nearly $200,000

-         The Denver Foundation has announced eighty-three grants totaling $1.3 million.

Disaster relief / Recession based programs

-         The Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation awarded $205,000 in grants from its Flood 2008 Fund, The foundation has awarded $5.5 million to seventy-six flood-affected nonprofits, nearly half of which provided direct support to individuals and families.

-         The St. Paul-based Bush Foundation met with leaders of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe along with representatives from the Pierre-based South Dakota Foundation, the Northwest Area Foundation, Native Americans in Philanthropy, and the University of South Dakota to recognize the tribe's leadership after a devastating January ice storm. Gifts made through SDCF and NAP totaled more than $400,000, which the tribe used to meet food, shelter, and other urgent needs in the wake of the storm.

-         As part of its commitment to address the foreclosure crisis in the Chicago region, the Chicago Community Trust, in partnership with Regional Home Ownership Preservation Initiative, announced that it is accepting applications from nonprofit agencies interested in participating in community outreach. The recently launched Cook County Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program, which will provide free housing counseling and legal services to Cook County homeowners and families in foreclosure, is designed to help homeowners resolve their mortgage cases in the most timely and respectful manner possible.

Diversity

-         The Cleveland Foundation’s African American Philanthropy Committee hosted a summit designed to educate, encourage, and inspire philanthropy in the African American community.

-         The Silicon Valley Community Foundation is partnering with Voto Latino, a civic engagement group for young Latinos, to encourage Latinos and Asian Americans to participate in the census. The foundation helped fund the local launch of the national Be Counted, Represent! campaign, which uses online, cell phone, and traditional media to reach youth between the ages of 18 and 34, a cohort that historically has been undercounted in the census. In exchange for signing up with Voto Latino, users will receive twenty-five free songs from major recording artists courtesy of iTunes. On its first day of operation, two hundred and fifty registrations were received.

Environment

-         The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving announced a $25,000 grant to help complete a major wetlands restoration project

-         The Oshkosh Area Community Foundation announced an effort to plant a thousand trees in Oshkosh this spring. The plantings are funded in part by a grant from the Taking Root Fund of the foundation and gifts from individual contributors.

Nonprofit leadership

-         The Chicago Community Trust is accepting applications for its annual fellowship program for emerging and experienced nonprofit and public-sector leaders. Up to ten fellows will be selected for the year-long program, and receive grants between $30,000 $60,000.

Capacity building / Helping nonprofits in economic trouble

-         The Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley has announced a $10,000 grant to the Aurora Historical Society to help the society remain open. To help ensure its future, the society is exploring ways to make history more relevant to members of the community while seeking to engage a larger audience with an expanded Web presence, better use of technology, and a variety of collaborative ventures.

Seniors

-         The New York Community Trust will match $500,000 in grants made by Atlantic Philanthropies to programs and organizations working to help seniors become more involved in their communities. Recipients include United Neighborhood Houses of New York, Isabella Geriatric Center, the Myrtle Avenue Commercial Revitalization and Development Project, and United Community Centers.

Education/ Educators

-         The Community Foundation of Sarasota County has announced $82,582 in grants from its Leslie and Margaret Weller Fund for Teacher Mini-Grants. Individual teachers will receive awards ranging from $1,600 to $5,000 to enhance their curriculum with special arts projects in disciplines such as poetry, music, writing, fine art, and filmmaking, as well as interdisciplinary science and technology projects.

Disability

-         The Aurora-based Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley has awarded more than $10,000 to Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital for its Assistive Technology Institute, which provides patients with the opportunity to maximize their overall function and independence through the use of technology.

This report from the Maine Community Foundation describes the Nonprofit Sector Viability Collaboration's program to help nonprofits clarify goals, cope with financial challenges, and adopt strategies to weather the recession through self-assessment, viability workshops, and consulting assistance.

The Triangle Community Foundation in Durham NC is sponsoring a competition pretty similar t what the CF of Utah is contemplating!

Durham, N.C. – Triangle Community Foundation announced today that it will launch an annual event, What Matters, for Triangle leaders to explore topics critical to our region's success. In conjunction with the event, the Foundation will present the What Matters Innovation Award to an organization actively engaged in that year's theme. The theme for 2010 is "A Diverse and Engaged Community."

The winner will be determined through an online voting process. The Foundation will select the top 10 applicants, who will be asked to submit a video to YouTube for the community to vote on. Online voting opens at www.trianglecf.org April 21 and will close on April 28.

How cool!

A $75,000 grant from the Grand Rapids Community Foundation for the FastTrac initiative will provide training to 100 potential Grand Rapids entrepreneurs over the next year. The money will go to the Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center, Region 7, which is housed at Grand Valley State University.

Amidst all the news of foundations—both private foundations and public foundations like community foundations—bemoaning their declining assets and grant distributions, the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation has a different story to tell. According to a foundation report, "Most foundations saw as much as a 10 percent drop in funding and we were the opposite. In fact, the money we gave in grants is the most we've ever been able to give." Donations to the foundation increased one-third over 2008 to $8.9 million, contrary to what the community foundation anticipated. The bulk of the grant distributions and income growth appears to have been in donor-advised funds. The Progress reports new funds established by donors in 2009 including the "Gateway Fund" of Jay and Barbara Kessler to support patients and families at the University of Virginia's liver transplant center. Of the $5.7 million in foundation grant distributions, the Progress says that $280,000 came from the foundation's own unrestricted funds. That means that the growth in this community foundation, perhaps in many, is in the donor-advised fund area, which is not surprising. Other named and visible funds at the community foundation include Bama Works identified with the Dave Matthews Band (which gave away $468,000 in 2009) and DAFs established to benefit the Martha Jefferson Hospital and scholarships for students at the Fluvanna County High School. Of course, other community foundations depending on the same DAF model have not fared nearly as well as the Charlottesville community foundation.—Rick Cohen

We've blogged about the important work being done by the Boston Foundation - and how much we'd love to see a similar effort here. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it has been investigating how we might provide useable - and understandable - indicators for Utah. This report really shows the value.

A Great Reckoning: Healing a Growing Divide: A Summary of the Boston Indicators Report 2009 by the Boston Foundation

Summarizes the Boston Indicators Project's findings on the city's economic, social, and technological progress in civic vitality, cultural life and the arts, economy, education, environment, health, housing, public safety, technology, and transportation.

Here are some of the latest innovations from community foundations across the nation:

Data aggregation / sharing

• The Community Foundation of Central Florida has a new Web site with details about the organizations it funds, including information on their management, governance, programs, and an in-depth look at finances. The searchable site includes data from more than three hundred area organizations. "
• The Greater Milwaukee Foundation has announced the launch of a new program called Vital Signs, which provides a single online location where users can find data on six different measurements of the region's economic health: home foreclosures, unemployment, food stamp enrollment, W-2 cases, calls for food assistance, and calls for shelter. Data are collected and analyzed monthly by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Employment and Training Institute and the information is then posted on the foundation's Web site. In addition to providing data, the site also provides in-depth analysis on one key topic each month through interviews with local experts.

Sample gifts TO CFS

• The Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa has received nearly $76,000 from the estate of Jean Parker, the Waterloo Courier reports.
• The Norwalk-based Fairfield County Community Foundation has announced a $1 million endowment gift from two anonymous to support Domus, which works to help struggling young people in the Stamford region turn their lives around through its educational, residential, and community programs. The organization hopes to expand the endowment to at least $20 million to help secure its long-term sustainability.
• The Yakima Valley Community Foundation has awarded grants totaling $406,000 to organizations working in the areas of human services, arts, and education, the Yakima Herald-Republic reports. Grants ranging from $2,000 to $50,000 were awarded to eighteen organizations, including Triumph Treatment Services, Nuestra Casa, and the Kittitas Environmental Education Network.

Ideas of how agencies are using assets / size of CFs

• The St. Joseph-based Berrien Community Foundation gave grants totaling more than $155,000 to organizations working in the areas of arts and culture, child development, education, and health.
• The Flagstaff Community Foundation, an affiliate of the Arizona Community Foundation, has awarded a hundred grants totaling more than $600,000 to local organizations, including the Artist's Coalition of Flagstaff, the Alliance for Children's Early Success, the Flagstaff Festival of Science, and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder of Northern Arizona.
• The Irvine-based Orange County Community Foundation has announced that during 2009 it surpassed the $150 million mark in grantmaking — just two years after topping $100 million. At an event celebrating its twenty-year history, the foundation honored its founder and executive director emeritus Judy Swayne, bestowing her with the foundation's 2009 Excellence in Philanthropy Lifetime Achievement Award. At the same time, Swayne and her husband announced that they were donating $500,000 to establish permanent endowments to support the environment and the arts.
• The Honolulu-based Hawaii Community Foundation has awarded a grant of more than $27,000 to help the Aloha House, Maui Youth & Family Services, and Malama Family Recovery Center merge technology systems in order to reduce administrative costs. By establishing a common server, the organizations hope to increase their efficiency. The grant was awarded by the Gwenfread Elaine Allen Fund of the foundation.
• The Santa Barbara Foundation has announced grants from the Orfalea Foundations totaling $225,000 to nonprofits that provide afterschool programs for teens.

Operations

• The Maine Community Foundation has announced that new guidelines for its community building grant program will go into effect in 2010. In addition to modifying its application form, the foundation has raised the maximum grant award from $7,500 to $10,000 and will be instituting new capacity-building grant opportunities.

Recession oriented activites

• The Philadelphia Foundation has announced the launch of the Generous Philadelphia Campaign, which will match up to $250,000 in donations to the foundation's Basic Needs Fund through the end of the year. The fund provides support to agencies working to help those most affected by the recession by providing food, housing, transportation, clothing, and help with utility expenses.

Aging

• The Maine Community Foundation has announced a new program designed to offer training in grassroots leadership and smart growth approaches to community development and environmental stewardship to people age 50 and older. A collaborative project with the University of Maine's Center on Aging, the Encore Leadership Corps is designed to give participants the support and skills they need to positively impact the health of their communities.

Collaboration with United Way

• The Charlotte-based Foundation for the Carolinas has announced that its Charlotte Mecklenburg Community Foundation affiliate has awarded $500,000 to the Community Catalyst Fund. Established in October in partnership with the United Way of Central Carolinas and the Arts & Science Council, the fund works to strengthen local nonprofits and enhance their ability to meet increased demand for services in a time of diminished funding.
• The Nashville-based Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee has announced that NoVo Foundation co-chair Jennifer Buffett will address more than six hundred women at its twelfth-annual Power of the Purse luncheon on April 23, 2010. The luncheon benefits the community foundation's Women's Fund, which awards grants to organizations serving women and girls in need in the region.

After five years of rising assets and giving, the Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County expects to see its grantmaking decline by as much as 17 percent in 2009. Like most endowments with equity investments, the foundation saw the value of its assets fall in 2008 — in its case, to $38.5 million at the end of the year, down from a peak of $45 million. And though the foundation, which awards roughly half its grants at the end of the calendar year, has seen the value of its assets climb back to $42 million over the last eight months, it has nevertheless cut its spending, closing its office and putting its eleven paid staff members on unpaid leave during Thanksgiving week.

The Lincoln-based Nebraska Community Foundation received a $1 million challenge grant from the Ford Foundation to boost its endowment and build its staff . To secure the gift, the organization must raise an additional $3 million from Nebraska-connected donors by the end of 2010. More than $1 million has already been committed toward its long-term goal of building a $12 million endowment.

For the past ten years, the organization has taught strategies related to entrepreneurship and fostering economic development through philanthropy. Since the foundation was founded in 1993, more than 50,000 contributions have been made to community funds administered by the foundation and more than $96 million has been awarded to charities and community groups in Nebraska.

The foundation is one of five organizations nationwide to receive one of the Ford grants.

Community Foundations large and small across the nation are creating and supporting innovative responses to some of their community's most complex public problems. These solutions involve donors, business leaders, government, other foundations, United Ways and government. But they all engage people willing to work together to better their communities. We share these ideas to highlight the kinds of programs we are committed to creating at the Community Foundation of Utah -- with your help.

These are just a few examples. Now we need to get to work!

Response to recession

-        The Columbus Foundation " Fund for Financial Restructuring" provides support for organizations assessing strategic partnerships, rethinking and developing their business model and financial planning, and establishing new organizational structures, systems, and operations to bolster mission-critical activities and boost visibility.  

Housing

-        Marin Community Foundation "Affordable Housing Initiative" developed in conjunction with affordable housing developers, advocates, and community agencies, will support strategies such as encouraging effective zoning changes and turning foreclosed homes into affordable housing options.

Community development

-        The Costa Mesa Community Foundation supported a series of summer concerts and a city-run maintenance program which the city council had previously voted to eliminate.

Community Dialogue and problem solving

-        The Dayton Foundation "Greater Dayton Conservation Collaborative" brings together local conservation organizations to explore opportunities to collaborate in preserving the region's natural resources.

Field of Interest or other Special funds

Field of Interest funds help donors join together for greater impact. Our first fund is in the area of social entrepreneurship.

-        The Environmental Funders Network, a joint project of the Maine Community Foundation and the Maine Philanthropy Center, gave $523,000 to eight organizations through its collaborative funding initiative, From Vision to Action: A Commitment to Maine's Quality of Place.

Natural Disaster

-        The Los Angeles-based California Community Foundation has announced a $150,000 grant to support immediate relief in the wake of the wildfire that has ravaged parts of Angeles National Forest.

 

Community Foundations large and small across the nation are creating and supporting innovative responses to some of their community's most complex public problems. These solutions involve donors, business leaders, government, other foundations, United Ways and government. But they all engage people willing to work together to better their communities. We share these ideas to highlight the kinds of programs we are committed to creating at the Community Foundation of Utah -- with your help.

These are just a few examples.

Response to recession

-        The Columbus Foundation " Fund for Financial Restructuring" provides support for organizations assessing strategic partnerships, rethinking and developing their business model and financial planning, and establishing new organizational structures, systems, and operations to bolster mission-critical activities and boost visibility.

Housing

-        Marin Community Foundation "Affordable Housing Initiative" developed in conjunction with affordable housing developers, advocates, and community agencies, will support strategies such as encouraging effective zoning changes and turning foreclosed homes into affordable housing options.

Community development

-        The Costa Mesa Community Foundation supported a series of summer concerts and a city-run maintenance program which the city council had previously voted to eliminate.

Community Dialogue and problem solving

-        The Dayton Foundation "Greater Dayton Conservation Collaborative" brings together local conservation organizations to explore opportunities to collaborate in preserving the region's natural resources.

Field of Interest or other Special funds

Field of Interest funds help donors join together for greater impact. Our first fund is in the area of social entrepreneurship.

-        The Environmental Funders Network, a joint project of the Maine Community Foundation and the Maine Philanthropy Center, gave $523,000 to eight organizations through its collaborative funding initiative, From Vision to Action: A Commitment to Maine's Quality of Place.

Natural Disaster

-        The Los Angeles-based California Community Foundation has announced a $150,000 grant to support immediate relief in the wake of the wildfire that has ravaged parts of Angeles National Forest.

 

The Council on Foundations has created a new organization to administer the national standards developed in 2000 that promote the self-regulation of U.S. community foundations. The Community Foundations National Standards Board will serve as the accrediting organization for community foundations, which are urged to comply with a series of benchmarks in areas including grantmaking, donor relations, resource development , and governance. Read full text.

The Minnesota Community Foundation and The St. Paul Foundation have put $2 million into a new Community Economic Relief fund to help those suffering through the hard economic times. They say they're funding "strategic projects with specific nonprofits that have capacity to reach thousands of people who are desperately in need of support." Read full text.

Community foundations across the nation are hard at work supporting their communities in creative ways, Learn more about what our community foundation can become!

This update covers January - March 2011

National Community Foundation Update, First Qt 2011

 

AIDS

The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has announced that the Atlanta AIDS Partnership, a joint project it leads with the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, has received a grant from AIDS United through its Access to Care initiative. The grant will support the integration of HIV care into primary healthcare settings in Atlanta's most affected communities.

Arts

The Maine College of Art has announced the 2011 recipients of grants from the Belvedere Fund for Professional Development in the Field of Crafts, which MECA established at the Ellsworth-based Maine Community Foundation in 2008 through a bequest from Deborah Pulliam. The fund provides grants of up to $1,500 to MECA alumni who hold a BFA degree and have graduated within the last ten years.

The Old Forge Arts Center has received a grant of $100,000 from the Utica-based Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties, the Herkimer Telegram reports. The grant will support the hiring of performing arts and special events managers and will facilitate the development of those areas.

The Pittsburgh Foundation has announced the launch of a fund, Advancing Black Art in Pittsburgh, designed to strengthen funding resources that support the work of local organizations and individuals focused primarily on the art of African Americans. The foundation and the Heinz Endowments have each awarded an initial $325,000 to establish the fund, which will be administered by the Pittsburgh Foundation and will award grants twice a year, beginning in the spring of 2011.

The Westport Country Playhouse has received $20,000 from the Fairfield County Community Foundation in support of its 2011 season and the development of a strategic plan, Broadway World reports. The playhouse serves an annual audience of sixty thousand people, including four thousand students.

The Coastal Bend Community Foundation in Corpus Christi has awarded $150,000 to help fund visual and performing arts projects around the area. The beneficiaries of the Coastal Bend Community Foundation Art Grant, which was supported by donations from the public, are the Art Center of Corpus Christi, the Art Museum of South Texas, the Beeville Community Chorus, the Beeville Concert Association, the Cathedral Concert Series, the Corpus Christi Chamber Music Society, the Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra, K-Space Contemporary, the Kingsville Symphony Orchestra, and South Texas Public Broadcasting.

Award

The Detroit-based Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan has announced the establishment of the Mariam C. Noland Award for Nonprofit Leadership in honor of president Mariam Noland's twenty-five years of service to the foundation and the region. Beginning in 2011, the annual award will recognize a nonprofit executive who has provided outstanding leadership, not only to their own organization but to the wider nonprofit community. The foundation will award $10,000 to the winner's organization, with a preference that the organization uses the funds to enable the recipient to attend professional continuing education, take a sabbatical for career rejuvenation, or engage in philanthropic leadership activities.

Basic needs

The Greater Milwaukee Foundation has announced $400,000 in grants through its Basic Needs Fund, which provides supplemental support to organizations that provide emergency assistance. In addition, the Faye McBeath Foundation and the Ceres Foundation, a supporting organization of GMF, each committed $50,000. Established in 2008 in response to the economic downturn, the Basic Needs Fund has awarded a total of $975,000, including $202,500 to emergency foodbanks, $522,600 to homeless shelters, $70,000 for emergency housing assistance and clothing, and $180,000 for a central access system to connect individuals and families with emergency shelter.

The Los Angeles-based California Community Foundation has announced nearly $222,000 in grants from its Critical Needs Fund, which was created in 2010 to aid nonprofits serving residents of Los Angeles County who are in dire conditions as a direct result of the economic downturn.The fund has awarded more than $586,000 to twenty-six organizations.

 

The Providence-based Rhode Island Foundation has announced twelve grants totaling $300,000 to organizations and coalitions working to help provide emergency assistance to families and individuals who are struggling to meet basic needs.

The Seattle Foundation has announce that it awarded four grants totaling more than $193,000 through its Building Resilience Initiative, which was launched in late 2008 to help King County residents weather the economic downturn.

The Yarmouthport-based Cape Cod Foundation has announced five grants totaling $30,000 through its 2010 Strategic Focus program to support the sustainability and long-term planning efforts of local organizations working to address homelessness, hunger, and other critical needs on the Cape.

The Community Foundation of Sarasota County has announced that for the second consecutive year it raised a total of $1.52 million through the Season of Sharing campaign to assist families at risk of homelessness in Charlotte, De Soto, Sarasota, and Manatee counties. Gifts include $50,000 from the William G. and Marie Selby Foundation and a one-to-one match of up to $500,000 for any new and increased gifts from the Patterson Foundation.

For the first time, the Twin Lakes Community Foundation, an affiliate of the Little Rock-based Arkansas Community Foundation, will be accepting applications online for its Giving Tree and Stop Hunger Endowment grant programs

CF growth/ fundraising

Despite the economic volatility of the past two years, the assets of the Hudson-based St. Croix Valley Foundation have exceeded $20 million, Established in 1995, the foundation has made almost $11 million in grants to organizations in the valley and recently announced a new competitive health and wellness grant program that will focus on stemming childhood obesity by encouraging outside exercise.

The Oshkosh Area Community Foundation has announced that during 2010 it awarded $10,000 to community groups through its Coins for Community Web initiative. The interactive game allows Web users to drag and drop virtual coins into piggy banks representing groups with endowment funds at the foundation. The group with the most coins at the end of the month wins a $1,000 grant from the foundation. In 2010, the foundation's Web site traffic increased 525 percent year-over-year, with Coins for Community driving 95 percent of total page views on the site.

The Community Foundation of Kankakee River Valley reached the $1 million milestone in its current fundraising drive. Thanks to an agreement with the Grand Victoria Foundation, that total was automatically matched.

Community Development

The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham has announced the launch of Prize2theFuture, which will award a total of $72,000 for the best ideas on how to transform a city parking lot adjacent to Railroad Park. The first-prize winner will receive $50,000, second place will get $10,000, third place will receive $5,000, and the remaining finalists will receive $1,000 each.

The Greater Milwaukee Foundation has announced grants totaling $110,000 for neighborhood improvement projects.

The Rockford-based Community Foundation of Northern Illinois has announced more than $15,000 through its Neighborhood Grants program.

Day of Giving

The Greensburg-based Community Foundation of Westmoreland County, an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Foundation, has announced that more than 950 donors contributed a total of nearly $300,000 to county nonprofits over a fifteen-hour period during Westmoreland's Day of Giving on December 1. The online event raised more than $197,000, which was matched by a $100,000 grant from CFWC.

Disaster

The Nashville-area Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee has announced that its two disaster funds have awarded a total of almost $5.5 million in flood relief to more than one hundred organizations since the May 2010 floods.

Diversity

The Greater New Orleans Foundation is partnering with the Human Rights Campaign, Puentes, the Vietnamese American Youth Leaders Association, and the Urban League of Greater New Orleans in an online-only giving circle called the Neutral Ground. The group aims to encourage participants to engage in an online dialogue about inter-community issues relating to race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, and will award grants to support important work in these areas. To date, the giving circle has raised a total of $10,000.

Employment

The Greater New Orleans Foundation and the city of New Orleans received funding from the National Fund for Workforce Solutions and its national implementation partner Jobs for the Future to develop innovative approaches to job training and career support. The foundation was awarded $300,000 over two years to support an expansion of its efforts to build partnerships with employers and focus on industry sectors important to the local economy.

Energy

The Vermont Community Foundation awarded real-time energy monitors to the Charlotte Town Energy Committee, the Mad River Valley's Localvolts, and the Waterbury Local Energy Action Partnership (LEAP) to develop community-based projects. The recipients were selected based on their ability to make efficient use of the technology, their plans to engage their communities in energy conservation and efficiency, and their area's demonstrated efforts to reduce energy use. The monitoring technology includes display and data-logging software that update every second, allowing users to view their energy consumption instantaneously. Each community will use the monitors to implement projects that help measure electricity use and identify opportunities for energy savings in homes, businesses, and community buildings.

Grantmaking

The Akron Community Foundation has announced grants totaling nearly $470,000, including more than $200,000 to support early learning initiatives.

The Greater Green Bay Community Foundation has announced thirty-two grants to local nonprofit and school programs totaling more than $108,000. The grants were awarded through the Fund for Greater Green Bay, a collection of field of interest and unrestricted funds of the GGBCF, and in partnership with generous donors who have funds at the foundation.

The Greater New Orleans Foundation announced grants to forty-two organizations through the IMPACT 2010 program, its largest discretionary grants program. In partnership with donors, GNOF awards grants averaging $20,000 to organizations working in the areas of arts and culture, civic engagement, education, health, human and social services, and youth development.

The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving announced 63 grants totaling more than $780,000 to area food and shelter programs. The total includes $300,000 from the Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund, established at the community foundation in 2000 by heirs of the longtime Hartford department store owner and philanthropist.

The Hilton Head Island Foundation Endowment Fund, part of the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, has awarded more than $136,000 in grants .

The Middletown Community Foundation has announced nineteen grants totaling more than $155,000, raising its total for the year to more than $2 million. .

The Mountain View-based Silicon Valley Community Foundation has announced grants totaling more than $850,000 to nonprofits, adult schools, and community colleges in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties working to provide instruction in English as a second language or vocational English training.

The Nashville-based Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee has announced grants totaling more than $756,000 to 154 organizations through its annual discretionary grantmaking process.

GlaxoSmithKline, whose U.S. headquarters are in Research Triangle Park, and the Durham-based Triangle Community Foundation have announced RFPs for the third annual GlaxoSmithKline IMPACT Awards program, which provides grants of $40,000 to community nonprofits in the state working to improve access to health care.

Health / Environmental / Science

The Glassboro-based Community Foundation of South Jersey has awarded $17,500 to Robins' Nest for its nurse family partnership program.

The Novato-based Marin Community Foundation has announced a $250,000 grant from its Sutter Health Access to Care Fund to help prevent and detect disease among uninsured low-income residents of Marin County. Since the donor-advised fund was established last year in a partnership between the foundation and the Sutter Health network, it has awarded a total of $2 million to support a wide range of health services for uninsured residents of the county.

The Duluth-based Community Foundation for Northeast Georgia has awarded a five-year, $50,000 grant to the Gwinnett Tech Foundation to support the Legacy of Lives capital campaign for the new Life Sciences Center at Gwinnett Technical College.

The New York Community Trust has announced that the first Lancelot M. Berkeley - New York Community Trust Prize in Astronomy

The Pittsburgh Foundation and the Sprout Fund have announced grants totaling $190,000 to twenty new biodiversity projects. T

Latino

A group of citizens in northeastern Oregon has formed to help build bridges between the growing Latino population and the rest of the community. A steering committee has been established that aims to create a new chapter of the Oregon Community Foundation in Umatilla and Morrow counties. The group is working to develop a steering committee, identify grant opportunities, and hire a part-time coordinator.

The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving has announced that it will hold a free-to-the-public forum on November 30 to discuss the effect of the state's education gap, which it calls the worst in the country, on Hispanic students. Sponsored by the foundation's Latino Endowment Fund.

LGBT

The Brooks Fund of the Nashville-based Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee was awarded the American Advertising Federation Nashville's ADDY award for its 2009 annual report, Out and About Newspaper reports. The fund works to encourage the inclusion, acceptance, and recognition of Middle Tennessee's lesbian and gay citizens by supporting a variety of nonprofit programs in the area that benefit the GLBT community. The foundation also was recognized for a marketing piece related to its efforts to help residents after floods devastated the area in 2010.

Media

The Pittsburgh Foundation has announced that it will launch an online news service during the summer to provide in-depth reports on issues that affect the Pittsburgh region. Supported in part by a grant of $253,000 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and $325,000 from the Pittsburgh Foundation, the site will be managed by the Pittsburgh Filmmakers group and will seek to work with regional broadcast and print media partners. Following the model of other nonprofit news groups, the site initially will use a core of independent freelance journalists for news and feature story assignments, and will employ a full-time editor and Web content manager.

Rural poverty

The Springfield-based Community Foundation of the Ozarks has announced that, in partnership with Commerce Trust, it awarded grants totaling $105,000 to twelve regional organizations working to address rural poverty issues through its Louis L. and Julia Dorothy Coover Regional Grantmaking Program.

Women

The Raleigh-based North Carolina Community Foundation has announced that at the end of 2010 it awarded grants of $9,000 each to Albemarle Hopeline, Girls Incorporated of the Albemarle, the Healing Place of Wake County, My Sister's House, ARTS North Carolina, and Domestic Violence Shelter and Services. The grants are part of the foundation's statewide Women's Fund, which provides support for organizations working on women's health and leadership issues.

The Women's Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation has announced the March launch of its Mastermind Group, which will provide a series of facilitated meetings and resources for area corporations interested in creating or expanding a women's leadership program. Members will be part of a year-long roundtable project that explores topics such as developing a business case for creating a women's leadership program, creating a task force, designing executive presentations, developing a communications plans, and creating metrics for measuring the business impact of recruiting, retaining, and advancing women.

Youth

NW Natural, a regional energy company, has announced a $10,000 grant to the Portland-based Oregon Community Foundation to help boost the foundation's Community 101 youth philanthropy program. The grant will provide $5,000 each to the student grantmaking programs at Roosevelt High School and Portland YouthBuilders. In the program, students work together to identify community needs, research nonprofits, conduct site visits, review grant applications, participate in community service, and make funding decisions. The grant will support organizations working in the areas of education, healthy families, or arts and culture.

The Boston Foundation has announced the launch of the CHAMPS (Coaches Helping Athletes Through Mentoring and Positive Sports) initiative, which is designed to strengthen existing out-of-school sports programs and help create new programs where they don't exist, as well as strengthen the ability of neighborhood coaches to serve as leaders and mentors for young people. Piloted last year in East Boston, the program will be introduced to additional neighborhoods starting with Dorchester.

The Community Foundation of Santa Cruz County has awarded $15,000 through its David E. Davis Fund to enable the Watsonville Community Band to provide lessons, band camp, and uniform pieces to area youth, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reports.

The Greater Cincinnati Foundation has announced that it is accepting applications for its two Grants for Kids programs, Learning Links and Summertime Kids, which provide grants of up to $1,000 to schools and nonprofits for special projects. Deadlines are March 21 for the Summertime Kids program and May 6 for Learning Links.