Innovations in Community Foundations

Community Foundation Innovation Competition

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!

CF in MI Fund SE (Grand Rapids)

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.

Communty Foundations Doing well (NPQ)

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

Boston Indicators Update (Boston CF)

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.

Innovations from Community Foundations (November)

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.

Not all easy going for CFs

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.

Nebraska CF challenge from Ford

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.

New programs from Community Foundations

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.

 

Community foundations get standards board

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.

Two foundations establish community relief fund

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 Foundation Update for February 2010

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

Aging

• The Chicago Community Trust has awarded $500,000 to AgeOptions, the Area Agency on Aging of suburban Cook County, through its Unity Challenge 2009 grant program, AgeOptions and eighteen community-based agencies will use the funds to help financially stressed older adults to stay in their own homes..

Scholarships

• Maine Community Foundation has announced that the Downeast Scholarship Fund, a collaboration with the Boston Foundation, will begin awarding scholarships to students in Washington County this spring. Through an anonymous donor, the Boston Foundation is making a ten-year commitment to support students seeking to further their education beyond high school. MaineCF will administer the program, which will meet a major portion of the students' financial need.

Green initiatives

• The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan has announced a grant of nearly $150,000 to Greening of Detroit for a pilot project designed to help maintain Detroit's greenways.
• The Columbus Foundation has announced sixteen grants totaling $25,259 from the Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Community Gardens Fund, which the company established to support a wide range of "brown to green" projects in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.

Haiti

• The Columbia-based Central Carolina Community Foundation has announced a $20,000 grant to the American Red Cross of Central South Carolina to assist with humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti..

Education

• The Greater Cincinnati Foundation has announced that it is accepting applications for its learning links grant program, which provides funding for creative and interesting projects or events that educators would like to present to their classrooms.
• The Community Foundation - Boulder County has announced it will hold two events promoting early childhood education in March. As part of the foundation's Ready.Set.Learn program, Bill Millett, a nationally recognized expert on early childhood education with a background in both business and the public sector, will  discuss how investing in early childhood education will build long-term economic vitality in the region.

Operating / capacity support grants

• The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has announced 800,000 in general operating support to 13 nonprofits through its Common Good Funds program. In addition, four organizations will receive custom-designed packages of professional resources to help respond to a key organizational challenge or opportunity in one of the foundation's four focus areas — strategic planning and business analysis; board development; fund development planning; and advocacy.
• The New York Community Trust has announced that it is supporting a phone-in hotline for nonprofit executives who need help with immediate management challenges, coaching, information, strategic advice, or tips on challenging human resources issues.

Arts

• The Chicago Sinfonietta has announced a $75,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust to enhance the symphony's Project Inclusion program, which is a mentoring program for artists of color designed to cultivate the next generation of musical talent by providing young musicians with professional development opportunities, coaching with senior members of the Sinfonietta, and job placement assistance. The grant will support the Project Inclusion Orchestra Fellows and the Project Inclusion Ensemble Fellows, the two different musician categories that make up the program as a whole.

Field of Interest / specific funds

• The Montgomery-based Community Foundation of Orange and Sullivan has established the Lake Foundation, which will provide support to organizations that serve battered women, abused children, and disabled veterans..

Reading

• The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has announced that its CEO, Alicia Philipp, will participate in the first annual For the Love of Reading competition, a friendly "reading battle" featuring CEOs and presidents of Georgia businesses and universities. To participate, first watch the videos of the contestants on the Ferst Foundation Web site and then cast a vote for your favorite; you can cast as many votes as you like in return for a $3 contribution, which will be used to support the delivery of books to children in the state. The president or CEO with the most votes will be declared Georgia's Favorite Reader and be presented the "For the Love of Reading Award" on March 1, 2010.

Housing

• The Preservation Compact, a public-private partnership working to preserve and improve the supply of affordable rental housing in Cook County, has announced that in just eighteen months its Energy Savers program retrofitted thirty-five hundred apartments and other rental units in Chicago and neighboring communities. Funded in part by the Chicago Community Trust, the program will be expanded region-wide to take energy efficiency services and financing to scale for both single and multi-family housing as well as non-residential buildings.

Basic needs

• The Peter Kiewit Foundation has awarded $20,000 to the Mid-Nebraska Community Foundation to help local organizations meet essential human needs over the winter months.. Recipients include the Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska, Grace Ministries' food pantry, the Rape and Domestic Abuse Program, St. Pat's/Holy Spirit food pantry, and the Salvation Army-North Platte corps.
• The Greater Houston Community Foundation is one of twenty-one groups participating in the Ozarks Million Dollar Hunger Challenge, the Houston Herald reports. Made possible by a $100,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation and a partnership with Ozarks Food Harvest, the challenge will enable the foundation to raise at least $3,600, to be matched 1:1 to fight hunger in the Houston and Harris County areas.