Strengthening Communities
Community Foundation Week Resources
Celebrating National Community Foundation Week
November 12-18: Engage with Your Local Community Today!
Community Foundation Week, created in 1989 by former President George H.W. Bush, recognizes the important work of community foundations throughout America and their collaborative and innovative…
Previewing the UN General Assembly: A Global Community of Actors
Previewing the UN General Assembly: A global community of actors
The world faces pressing challenges that require global responses – the climate crisis, entrenched inequality, migration, and more. But with international cooperation increasingly at risk, actions taken at the local level are ever…
Community Philanthropy Update—May 2019
This time of year, I receive numerous inquiries about administrative fees. Perhaps it is first quarter investment return reviews or something in the spring air—but my response to the question about ‘lowering fees’ is fairly consistent—why would we encourage the lowering of fees?
To begin, I have…
Webinar Recording: Post-Graduation Scholarships: What Are They and How Can You Use Them?
Recording
Interested in alleviating the student loan debt crisis and attracting needed talent to your community? This webinar is for you! Last year, the Workforce Development Through Post-Graduation Scholarships Act was introduced in Congress. This bill would allow charitable foundations to…
Opportunity Zones
What are Opportunity Zones?
Created by changes to the tax code in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in December 2017, Opportunity Zones are state-nominated, economically depressed communities that are in need of new investment. These investments could, under certain circumstances, be eligable for…
Webinar Recording: Fostering the Grassroots Leadership Capacity of Community
Recording
View the Slides
Community Foundations around the country recognize that they must deploy capital beyond financial assets to improve their regions. At the same time, our community leadership has grown frustrated by the pace of change. Most of these leaders have come to understand that…
Webinar Recording: Preventing and Ending Homelessness by Removing Legal Barriers: A Partnership Taking Best Practice to Scale
Download the Slides
While housing, employment and other supportive services are critical to prevent and end homelessness, the reality is legal barriers such as bad credit, unpaid child support, unpaid fines and tickets, outstanding warrants and criminal records present a hard stop that…
CDFI Fund Map of All Census Tracts Eligible for Designation as a Qualified Opportunity Zone
External Resource
The CDFI Fund has identified over 41,000 population census tracts that are eligible for designation as a QOZ, including (1) 31,680 population census tracts that are Low-Income Communities (LICs) eligible for designation as QOZs; and (2) 9,453 non-LIC population census tracts that are eligible for…
US Impact Investing Alliance Resources on Opportunity Zones
External Resource
Now that Opportunity Zones have been designated, individual and corporate investors are then given the opportunity to defer capital gains taxes when they reinvest the earnings in these communities. Additional incentives accrue over five, seven and ten years if the investment is maintained – thereby…
How Community Foundations Can Use the Opportunity Zone Tax Incentive for Community Development?
External Resource
This white paper from the Community Foundation Public Awareness Initiative discusses a timely and significant opportunity for community foundations (CFs): How they can use the recently enacted federal Opportunity Zone tax incentive to benefit communities in need by leveraging their knowledge of…
Community Foundations, Meet Opportunity Zones
External Resource
Guest writer Adam Northup, LOCUS Advisor, shares what every Community Foundation should know about Opportunity Zones. Created by the new tax law, this new tool has the potential to revitalize left behind communities.
Mission Investors Exchange Opportunity Zones Resources
External Resource
The OZ program is intended to spur long-term investments in low-income census tracts in the U.S. The new law allows investors to place unrealized capital gains (a profit from an investment that hasn’t yet been sold) into authorized O Funds that invest capital into OZs. The greatest benefits would…
LOCUS National Opportunity Zones Ranking Report
External Resource
With the creation of the federal Opportunity Zones incentive program, trillions of dollars in new private investment will flow into pre-designated low-income communities around the country. But will this investment benefit the people living in these communities now, or will they be displaced as new…
Department of the Treasury Opportunity Zones Resources
External Resource
Treasury and IRS have issued an initial set of proposed regulations and guidance on how the Qualified Opportunity Zone tax benefits under IRC 1400Z-2 (including the certification of Qualified Opportunity Funds and eligible investments in Qualified Opportunity Zones) will be administered.…
DAFs, PRIs, L3Cs - Tools of Social Impact Investing
The use of for-profit entities financed by both nonprofit and for-profit dollars provides a nongovernmental free enterprise way to solve many social issues while adding to the wealth of the populace rather than depleting government funds and heralding a bright future. We commonly call these…
Navigating the Territory: A Guide to Impact Investing for Donors
You can become an impact investor today. This guide created by The Philanthropic Initiative will help you learn the different options you have for aligning your financial assets with your social goals to help for-profit and non-profit social benefit organizations become stronger and more…