My Journey with Community Philanthropy

"Can you imagine if we designed the entire city for children?"

This was stated by Enrique Peñalosa Londoño, former Mayor of Bogota, Colombia, and it has stuck with me for many years. The idea of designing an entire city for children, or better yet, giving back to a community that our children, and their children, and their children’s children, will someday inherit greatly intrigues me.

I simply ask, will it be worth inheriting?

I believe community foundations support the fundamental right to preserve, protect, and make better our world - at least, our little corner of it. As the new Director of Community Philanthropy at the Council, I look forward to interacting with the field of community foundations of all sizes, shapes, and models across our country. I recognize my own limitations, and look forward to learning from you.

I am the product of a community foundation; or perhaps my career is. I was born and raised in a small community in Southern Indiana that was blessed with an abundance of well-maintained and diversified civic amenities, a strong public education system, a demanding faith-based people, and a sense of place.

Many of these attributes either came from or were enhanced by a community foundation. I received a scholarship from my local community foundation before I ever comprehended the value of a bequest, an endowment, or community philanthropy. Eventually, I would lead a community foundation—not one, but two—toward a merger for the benefit of their operational stability and the benefit of the broader public. A unified community foundation with greater fiscal and human capital to deploy.

I hope each of us knows that the goal isn’t to live forever; it's to create something that will. This is why I have an endowment with my local community foundation. I suggest you consider it too.

Make a difference in the world - at least, your little corner of it. Be the greatest philanthropist we never heard of. I plan to be.