For 25 years, the Community Foundation has been a community catalyst, responding to immediate needs and anticipating future challenges. How do we do it?
For 25 years, the Community Foundation has been a community catalyst, responding to immediate needs and anticipating future challenges. How do we do it?
“The Community Foundation is incredibly well connected in Boulder County, bringing together everyone who has a stake in a particular issue,” says Richard Garcia, Executive Director of the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition. “When the foundation first started ELPASO as a grassroots movement, they offered the capacity and access to hold forums and meetings explaining to people why this initiative was an important extension of the foundation’s School Readiness Initiative.”
Continues Richard, “Many nonprofits may work for years on a cause, but without the informed foresight and capacity that a foundation has, it can be very difficult to really make an impact over time. The Community Foundation lends credibility and stability to our efforts.
“Taking the School Readiness Initiative as an example, the foundation researched and gathered the facts about the achievement gap in Boulder County – one of the widest achievement gaps in the state – and how
our data compares to national data. Then they organized and brought together diverse stakeholders who share a mission to address this issue, thereby shining a light on the problem and providing context for solutions.
“There’s nothing better than unbiased facts to get a point across, wake people up – including our school districts and others who are sometimes too close to the forest to see the trees – and get them to understand and care about an issue.”
In a decade of involvement with the Community Foundation, Richard – a pioneer in early childhood education statewide, as well as a former member of our
Board of Trustees, has been integral to launching and implementing the school readiness and ELPASO (Engaged Latino Parents Advancing Student Outcomes) efforts. “The direction in which the foundation is moving – and I hope other community foundations across the country will follow suit – is to get people to take ownership of issues in our county that affect each of us, directly or indirectly, now or in the future.
“We often hear terms like ‘change agent’ or ‘catalyst’ – but the Community Foundation really walks the talk.”
Agrees Bob Morehouse, founder and CEO of
Vermilion Design + Digital, and another longtime supporter, partner and former trustee of the foundation: “The Community Foundation keeps an eye on where the gaps are, and then works proactively with others to address them.
“For example, following the unexpected win of Amendment 2 in 1992, Josie Heath learned that the leading gay and lesbian funder [Tides] was offering $100K to community foundations who would match it with $50K – it was very smart and proactive of The Community Foundation to go for this funding, and we were one of four foundations to receive support from Tides. Since then, the seminal
Open Door Fund has continued to grow that pot of money, while
giving out money every year to support the important work of LGBTQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning] rights.
“The foundation recognized an opportunity that became a strategic tool for advancing the needs of our LGBTQ community in Boulder County. From youth and senior programs to arts and health programs, the efforts of so many deserving organizations have benefitted from the foundation’s foresight to start a dedicated fund.”
Bob also cites the foundation’s catalytic approach to encourage both a culture of giving and active engagement. “We want to help donors make smart decisions about giving in our community … but we also want them to have an active role in identifying and helping solve critical problems of the times. To that end, the foundation’s
TRENDS reports make public the scope of inequality in our community – especially the achievement gap among lower-income children.
“I’m increasingly proud of the Community Foundation for grabbing tough issues by the horns, and using its resources in powerful ways to inform and leverage the good will and intelligence of many people to tackle those issues – like the achievement gap and homelessness – that we all care about strongly.”
Concludes Bob, “More and more, the foundation’s role is to convene others, identify gaps and overlaps, inspire ideas and facilitate more effective, synergistic ways to address problems we face as a community. That’s what it means to be a community catalyst.”
