Community Foundations

Community foundations are grantmaking public charities that are dedicated to improving the lives of people in a defined local geographic area. They bring together the financial resources of individuals, families, and businesses to support effective nonprofits in their communities. Community foundations vary widely in asset size, ranging from less than $100,000 to more than $1.7 billion.

Community foundations play a key role in identifying and solving community problems. In 2017, they gave an estimated $5.48 billion to a variety of nonprofit activities in fields that included the arts and education, health and human services, the environment, and disaster relief. The Community Foundations National Standards Board confirms operational excellence in six key areas—mission, structure, and governance; resource development; stewardship and accountability; grantmaking and community leadership; donor relations; and communications. Foundations that comply with these standards can display the official National Standards Seal. Currently, over 500 community foundations have earned the seal.

More than 900 community foundations operate in urban and rural areas in every state in the United States; currently, approximately 350 are members of the Council on Foundations. The community foundation model also has taken hold around the world. Community foundations have participated in the growth of international giving by U.S. foundations in recent years, with international giving by community foundations more than tripling, from $103 million in 2011 to $315 million in 2015, and community foundations' share of overall international giving by U.S. foundations more than doubling, from 1.4 percent in 2011 to 3.4 percent in 2015.

You can use our Community Foundation Locator to view a list of community foundations in the United States.

Below is everything on our site for community foundations. We highly recommend that you use the navigation or our search feature to find what you're looking for on our site. Please also visit cof.org/community-foundations for curated community foundation content. 

Staffing Models and Board Engagement: Two Vital Assets for Growing Community Foundations

For today’s post, we’ve asked two leaders to weigh in on topics of interest to young, growing community foundations. Their organizations—Kern Community Foundation and The Community Foundation of Mendocino County—participated in Community Foundations Initiative II, a multiyear initiative by The…

Why I Approved Our Dues Check to the Council

I recently signed a check for our 2012 Council on Foundations dues. Since I’m the chair of the Council that is probably not surprising. But that’s not my day job. My paycheck comes from being the CEO of Berks County Community Foundation. I was the first employee hired by the foundation, and, like…

Deadline for Career Pathways Program Approaching

The application deadline for the third class of the Council on Foundations’ Career Pathways Program is March 21. Individuals with diverse backgrounds seeking career advancement in the field of philanthropy are encouraged to apply. In two short years, the Career Pathways program has…

Impact Investing Glossary of Terms

External Resource
From Mission Investors Exchange, 2012

Small California Community Foundations Get Big Results

Over the past six years, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with a set of small, young community foundations in under-resourced parts of California as they aim to grow faster, smarter, and increase the positive impact they are having in their communities. With Irvine’s Community…

Calling all Community Foundations!

In the United States, community foundations serve tens of thousands of people, administer more than $49 billion in charitable funds, and address the core concerns of more than 725 communities and regions. Not only are these community-based foundations a valuable sources of local wealth held in…

Tough Community Issues Call for Leadership

As my colleague Peter Pennekamp from the Humboldt Area Foundation says, when it comes to community leadership it’s not always the most pressing issue that you need to be working on; it’s the issue where there’s energy and heat. In a word: tension. And in our community, there’s tension around…

Los Angeles: Where Philanthropy and Culture Meet

From April 29-May 2, Los Angeles will play host to the 2012 Council on Foundations Annual Conference. As a member of the planning task force and the foundation community of L.A., I want to extend a special invitation to community foundations to participate. Jim Canales, president of the James…

Empowering Community through Partnering and Experimentation

Attending this week’s annual Knight Foundation Media Learning Seminar in Miami, we were struck not only by how much has been accomplished by the Knight Community Information Challenge (KCIC), but also by how much the conversation has evolved. It was just a few years ago that Alberto Ibargüen,…

For Community Foundation Media Projects: Rules of the Road for Partnership

As community foundations become active leaders in local news and information, many are learning they don’t need to go it alone. A variety of different partnership models are emerging and they are detailed in a new report by FSG for Knight Foundation.  The report is aimed primarily at…

Community Foundations and Impact Investing of DAFs

On January 9th, Wall Street Journal blogger Veronica Dagher posted an article highlighting the opportunity for philanthropic donors with Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) to create a “double bottom line.” Dagher points out that donors at large national funds, such as Schwab, are increasingly looking not…

How Direct Service Drove Me to Community Impact

I looked down at my phone as it began to ring and I screamed with frustration, “Seriously? Again?!? Don’t they realize that it is 3 p.m. on a Friday?” That was the tagline I was known all too well for when I did housing relocations for tenants. Housing inspectors would notoriously find a home to…

How Mother Nature Changed Our Plans … But Not Our Message

I’ve long been wary about in-house videos. Because, let’s face it, videos can be tough to pull off. So it was with some trepidation that we decided not just to make our first set of short videos this year, but to feature them at our 25th anniversary annual meeting-indeed, to make them the…

Do More than Grow: Realizing the Potential of Community Foundation Donor-Advised Funds

Publication
Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs) have been a growth engine for community foundations since the 1990s but the aspiration today is for DAFs to do more. In Do More than Grow: Realizing the Potential of Community Foundation Donor-Advised Funds, new data and analysis of donor behavior reveals the significant…

2012 Columbus Survey Results: Guideposts Point to New Heights

Publication
With this report, CF Insights' aim is to share a snapshot of community foundation asset growth and activity during 2012. The findings are based on 276 community foundation responses to the Columbus Survey as of June 2013.

Benchmarking Beyond Asset Size Top 100 Lists - FY 2012

Publication
In this publication, CF Insights highlights attributes that characterize community foundations in ways beyond asset values. 2012 Columbus Survey participants are ranked based on: Most Active Grantmakers—distribution rates, with percent of donor-advised assets Most Gifts per Capita—gifts per…
Subscribe to Community Foundations