Fundamentals of Community Foundation grant making

As the Southwest Florida Community Foundation has recently wrapped up its Major Annual Grant cycle, I have been asked by several people how community foundations make grants to charities and what funds are available for grants. Community foundations are different from other philanthropies such as private foundations, family foundations, and corporate giving programs in that they are made up of many different funds established by donors to address a wide range of current and long-term community needs.

So community foundations are not only grantmakers but also fund developers and donor service providers. Community foundations must balance being responsive to immediate community needs while also being responsible stewards of donor assets to ensure that donors are able to leave a lasting legacy and address community needs well into the future. For this reason community foundations only distribute a certain percentage from their funds on an annual basis.

Of the Southwest Florida Community Foundation's more than 320 endowed funds, the majority are in some way restricted and are not available for competitive grants to charities. Donor-Advised funds enable donors to make recommendations to the foundation on awards to charities, and designated funds are established by donors to support a specific organization(s). Other restricted funds are student scholarships and agency endowments.

Field of Interest and Unrestricted funds are the only funds available for competitive grants. Field of Interest funds enable donors to support causes addressing specific areas of interest, and, although the funds are not restricted to specific organizations, grants awarded from these funds must support the causes of the donor. Unrestricted funds are our most flexible and allow us to be more responsive to immediate and changing community needs because donors do not place restrictions on the use of these funds.

So it's easy to see why even though the Southwest Florida Community Foundation has $57 million in assets, only a small portion is available for competitive grants to charities. In our 2008 Major Annual Grant cycle, we received an unprecedented 114 grant proposals requesting $2.4 million in a cycle that usually has a maximum of 70-80 applications requesting around $1.5 million. These figures are definitely a sign of the tough economic times facing Southwest Florida, as many nonprofits are seeing government funding and individual donations decreasing while at the same time their client caseloads and operating costs are steadily increasing.

In the end, we had $426,000 available for the grant cycle and were able to fund 26 nonprofits. Although we were not able to fund all of the worthwhile organizations that applied, the

funded agencies demonstrated that they were providing high quality, much-needed services in the community and met one or more of the following criteria: their proposed projects address a critical community need; the projects have the potential to have a significant, measurable impact on the community; the organizations have strong collaborative partnerships; the projects are well-planned and have detailed budgets; and, the organizations have demonstrated the capacity to both implement and sustain their projects.

In addition to the Major Annual Grant cycle, we also offer the Arts and Attractions grant cycle in partnership with the Tourist Development Council, City of Fort Myers, and the Alliance for the Arts; quarterly Capacity Grants; and, monthly Good Samaritan grants.

The Southwest Florida Community Foundation has been supporting the communities of Lee, Charlotte, Collier, Glades and Hendry through endowed funds for nearly 32 years. With assets of more than $57 million and over 320 endowed funds, the Community Foundation has provided more than $30 million in grants and scholarships to the communities it serves.

For more information, call (239) 274-5900, or visit their Web site at www.floridacommunity.com.