21st -Century Community Foundations

Abstract

Community foundations across the United States are actively thinking through how to engage with donors who have local, national, and international interests. This paper examines how different community foundations are responding to changing definitions of community to meet the needs of their donors and their local communities. It posits that the key characteristic of community foundations compared to other donor advised fund providers is their leadership and civic engagement within and outside of their stated geography. I wrote this paper because increasingly, community foundations are wrestling with this definitional issue, which is becoming a fundamental question to their operations. It’s not going away—it shouldn’t go away—and community foundations have a responsibility to explore and debate what can and will happen as a result.