Community foundations were created to become their city’s superheroes by impacting real social and economic needs. These foundations affect positive change by funding crucial nonprofit programs and projects across our nation. Learn how they also support church ministries …
Comics have been appealing to people of all ages for years, but what about them makes them so appealing to people? Is it the flashy costumes? The heinous villain? The super cool gadgets? While all of those things are definitely captivating, typically, people are drawn to the ending of the story where the hero saves an entire city. Likewise, people all around are looking for the same thing, someone to save an entire city.
Community foundations have been around for over seventy years and are actively striving to do exactly that. According to an article on community foundations written by Hannah Saeger, “Community foundations were created to solve a community’s social and economic problems by addressing root causes (Sacks 2000)”. [1]
But what exactly are community foundations? And what do they do? In the following article, we will be talking about community foundations and how they can play a role in supporting your church’s ministries.
What are community foundations?
Community foundations play a key role in identifying and solving community problems. With the goal of enhancing the lives of those residing within their community, these grantmaking public charities amalgamate the financial resources of individuals, families, and corporations to successfully fund nonprofits in their specific geographic region. [2]
Operating at a capacity of over 900 community foundations in the United States, foundations such as these are able to “offer numerous types of grantmaking programs, frequently including donor-advised funds, endowments, scholarships, field-of-interest funds, giving circles and more.” [3]
Seek to partner with community foundations
Because community foundations make it their goal to be in the know with what is going on in their community, community foundations make excellent resources when trying to become familiar with one’s community’s issues.
In an interview with Alex Painter, community engagement officer of the Wayne County Foundation, Painter explained why community foundations are excellent resources for familiarizing oneself with community issues.
Painter stated, “Every community foundation makes grants to nonprofit organizations; while I can't speak for every grant from every foundation, fundamentally these awards are made to improve the quality of life and vitality of the community. This puts the community foundation in a great position to have a keen understanding of community issues and needs.”
“Not only that, the foundation will have relationships and dialogue with most area nonprofits who are delivering services to vulnerable populations. Additionally, the foundation also has the input of donors, who typically see community issues as well,” he continues.
How to utilize community foundations
So, it is understood why community foundations make great resources for familiarizing oneself with community issues, but how can one use said community foundations to discover the target issues in one’s community.
As stated previously, it is the main goal of the community foundations to be well versed with what is going on in their communities. So this can be used to your advantage when seeking to find the issues in your own community that your church can serve through its programs and projects.
Painter states, “Most community foundations rely heavily on data and statistics in order to best know which issues are the most pressing in their respective community. Often, this type of information really helps guide a foundation's strategic grantmaking priorities.”
“For the Wayne County Foundation, we keep our 'Community Needs Indicator' updated yearly, which is a document with all sorts of information, and available to the general public. That being said, even if your community foundation doesn't have all the 'numbers' at hand, they certainly have had discussions with your local nonprofits, and will always have a good sense of where the needs in the community lie, even through anecdotes,” he adds.
By using community foundations as a resource to get familiar with these issues, you streamline your process of knowing what issues to target when grant writing.
Connecting with community foundations
Creating connections within your community is one of the most important concepts in the grant writing world. By networking within your community, it opens up doors to you and your programs that may have not originally been open to you.
If you desire to learn more about the importance of networking and how to do so when it comes to grant writing, be sure to check out our recent blog article, “It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know,” and our chapter on Networking in Grant Writing Strategies for Churches.
Alex Painter “strongly encourages every nonprofit to interface with not just their community foundation, but all the grant makers in their area (United Way, private foundations, et al). Figure out who their program or engagement officer is - that's normally the person who oversees the grants - and have conversation. Ask what the foundation likes to see in a grant proposal. It will not only strengthen your grant applications, but also your relationship with a funder!”
Like-minded missions
Community foundations serve their community, and in essence, your church and its ministries are existing to do the very same thing. Community foundations are looking to support programs that are bettering the lives of the community surrounding them, and as a church your goal is to better the lives of your community by spreading the gospel to them. By tapping into community foundations as a resource, you combine forces with the same goal in mind, to serve your community.
If you can demonstrate to these community foundations that your goals are the same as their goals, they will see the importance of getting behind your programs and what you are doing or trying to do.
Do they support churches directly? Maybe, maybe not. However, they support the mission of the church and that is what is really important. The key to a successful grant proposal is to focus on how your missions are similar; don’t hide your faith-based focus, but neither focus on it solely.
In this article, we have discussed what community foundations are, what they do, how to utilize them as resources and how they can play a role in supporting church ministries.
Exousia seeks to educate and consult church leaders on how grants work and the importance of connecting with your local community foundations. Our prayer is that you are inspired to write grants and are blessed to land funding for your church ministries.
If you desire to learn more about grant writing, check out our online grant writing institute or attend an upcoming in-person workshop!
[1] Community foundations. Community Foundations | Learning to Give. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://www.learningtogive.org/resources/community-foundations
[2] Community foundations. Council on Foundations. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://cof.org/foundation-type/community-foundations
[3] What is a community foundation? Fidelity Charitable. (n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2022, from https://www.fidelitycharitable.org/guidance/philanthropy/community-foundations.html
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