Our Values

Personalized service: 

Community Foundations help individuals, families, businesses and non-profit agencies achieve their charitable and financial goals by providing tools and resources that make giving easy, flexible and effective.

• Donors can create a charitable fund and recommend grants that support the issues and groups they care about – such as the arts, education, the environment, animals and healthcare – even if these groups are located outside of their local community. Or, donors can rely on the foundation to make grants that reflect their particular interests.
• We are an attractive alternative to starting a private foundation, since we handle all the record keeping, reporting to the IRS, accounting and investment management.
• Donors who establish a fund at a Community Foundation benefit from the highest available tax deductions for charitable contributions.
• Donors have opportunities to be involved in the grant making process, including recommending grant recipients.
• We can accept a variety of assets and facilitate complicated giving strategies.
• We pool the assets of individualized funds, giving us economies of scale to hire top investment managers.
• Donors can choose to be anonymous in their giving.

Local expertise: 

Community Foundations have an in-depth understanding of the community’s challenges and the groups and individuals addressing them.

• We closely monitor community issues, opportunities and resources.
• Our knowledge of the community enables our donors to make a difference by funding high-impact initiatives addressing a broad range of local needs.
• Our expertise helps donors learn more about local issues in order to make their giving as effective as possible.

Community Leadership: 

Community foundations play a key role in addressing community needs – now and in the future.

• We serve as community catalysts, convening diverse voices and groups to work on solutions to local issues.
• We build endowments to ensure that grants are always available to support the community.
• We foster greater giving and volunteering.
• We are governed by leaders with strong ties to our community.