About Us
Community Foundations: An Overview of Some Special Strengths
- A long-term view: Because community foundations focus on building permanent endowments, they are able to tackle long-term community challenges as well as immediate needs;
- Permanence: Gifts to a community foundation endowment meet community needs in perpetuity;
- Community-based, personalized donor service: Community foundations are uniquely equipped to help individual donors meet their particular philanthropic goals by providing in-depth knowledge of community opportunities along with expertise in a wide range of flexible charitable giving options;
- A broad perspective: Community foundations make effective grants and develop networks in a wide range of sectors. With this in-depth community knowledge, they can identify opportunities in many fields and build on existing community strengths. They are also well placed to make simple, but often powerful, connections between people and organizations in the community;
- Commitment to community service: Community foundations are broad-based, volunteer-driven local organizations. Because their view of community issues and priorities is independent and crosses many sectors, community foundations have an opportunity for collaborative leadership that transcends "special interests" and reflects the interests of the community at large;
- Accountability: Community foundations believe that their values and way of working, not just their work, can be a powerful tool for building social capital. As responsible members of the voluntary sector, community foundations strive for flexible, transparent governance and leadership practices that welcome volunteer involvement, encourage dialogue among diverse voices in the community, and inspire commitment to philanthropy.