A new year beckons new opportunities to deepen impact and community engagement.
Here at the Community Foundation Boulder County, we’re often asked by potential new donors, partners, and other interested community members: “what’s the role of a community foundation?”
We love this question, because it allows us to take stock of the many ways the foundation aims to serve our community – from our many diverse grantees that are making a difference across our county’s most pressing and emerging issue areas, to targeted programs and initiatives, to the expertise we provide around a range of giving opportunities.
In essence, our answer to “what’s the role of a community foundation?” is shared by community foundations across the country and the world: to improve the lives of everyone who lives in our near communities.
To do so, it’s our responsibility to keep a finger on the pulse of our communities’ changing needs and potentials. Here at your Community Foundation, our biennial TRENDS Report – which tracks some 150 community indicators of Boulder County’s social, economic and environmental health – quantifies the outcomes and contextualizes the impact of our efforts, and informs and refines our grantmaking.
In addition to being a trusted purveyor of community information, and continually compiling data and sharing stories of positive change, the Community Foundation Boulder County also creates connections and synergies among networks and institutions to ignite action around immediate needs – and anticipated future needs. Think of us as a vehicle for philanthropy that rallies resources, people, and public-private sector partnerships around specific community challenges – whether that’s relatively shorter-term flood or fire recovery, or tackling tougher, more entrenched challenges like our achievement gap or lack of representative inclusivity; indeed, a related role of your Community Foundation is to develop informed, impassioned community leaders who represent the diversity of our county.
By addressing issues from homelessness to healthcare, we channel the caring and compassion of local residents into coordinated, collaborative actions that respect the dignity of everyone who lives here. It’s you – our dedicated grantees, donors, partners, and advisors – who are on the ground, implementing social change day by day, family by family. The Community Foundation helps maximize your knowledge, expertise, and good will by facilitating community engagement and empowerment, building coalitions around a common cause, and supporting the operations and capacities of direct service providers.
The Community Foundation also champions another form of civic participation, namely executing donor-driven grantmaking, educating donors about community concerns, and connecting local philanthropists with one another. Together, we’re good stewards of accumulated and pooled resources for the public good – today and always.
What’s the role of your community foundation? To address current community concerns, respond to urgent needs…and build on our collective strengths as a means to prepare for future needs, too. Put another way, we catalyze our community around innovative, informed solutions that make life better for everyone who calls Boulder County home.
But we can’t do it alone: join us for a better Boulder County, because we accomplish more together than we do alone.
