GIVING
Reaping the benefits
DR. _JULIA EAST President & CEO, Southwest Florida Community Foundation

If you have ever participated in a program at the YMCA, received aid from the American Red Cross, taken a class at the Art League, or toured the Edison & Ford Winter Estates, you have benefited from an area community foundation.

Vital services critical to the core of American society would be lost if the funding stream from community foundations were to vanish. Yet there are indications that state and federal elected officials do not understand the unique assistance of community foundations in sustaining essential services to the American public. Funding of these services would fall to governmental entities if the current level of community foundation support was curtailed due to legislative changes.

Community foundations are public, nonprofit, nonsectarian philanthropic organizations, which are a repository of endowed funds that promote the health, growth, and longevity of a particular geographic area. Community foundations can represent a city, county, region, or state.

They are complex organizations and have a myriad of roles within the community. These roles include builders and stewards of permanent community resources, grantmakers, service providers to nonprofits organizations, service providers to donors, conveners, catalysts and collaborators, and promoters of philanthropy.

Of all their functions, first and foremost a community foundation builds permanent community resources through endowed funds to assist with current and future community needs. There are a number of different types of endowed funds that donors may establish, either during their lifetimes or through their estate plans.

Frederick Harris Goff, a Cleveland banker and lawyer, established the first community foundation in 1914 when he created the Cleveland Foundation. By 2006, there were about 1,175 community foundations in 46 countries and, of those, approximately 700 were in the United States.

In Southwest Florida alone, there is a combined total of more than $115 million in assets with the Southwest Florida Community Foundation and its affiliates, Bonita Springs Community Foundation and the Good Neighbor Community Foundation of Sanibel-Captiva; Cape Coral Community Foundation; Collier County Community Foundation and Charlotte County Community Foundation.

The community foundations of this area have given more than $60 million in grants and scholarships to support and strengthen Southwest Florida.

These grants have provided support in human services, education, arts and culture, environmental protection, historic preservation, and animal welfare.

As our community evolves, the Southwest Florida Community Foundation will continue to strive to meet the greatest community needs.

For more information on the many ways of tax expedient charitable giving, please call the Southwest Florida Community Foundation at 274-5900, or you financial or tax advisor.

Grant money