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COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS | FUNDERS | MANAGING PARTNERS
COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS
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Connecting Donor Interests With Community Needs Since 1978 |
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OUR MISSION
The mission of the Arizona Community Foundation is to empower and align philanthropic interests with community needs and build a legacy of giving. The Arizona Community Foundation and its 13 affiliates are a statewide philanthropy and partnership of donors, staff, nonprofit organizations, volunteers and the community working together to solve community problems and build on opportunities to create positive change. Founded in 1978, the Arizona Community Foundation manages 875 funds with endowment and trust assets of $560 million. In 2006, ACF and its affiliates award $30.6 million in grants and scholarships to community organizations and students. In addition to these functions, ACF sponsors special projects, convenes people to explore specific issues and collaborates with other organizations to organize community-wide resources around commonly identified problems.
FACES OF ACF
ACF Board member Russ Jones serves as
the affiliate board liaison for the Western Region, a three-county
area that includes the border county of Yuma, as well as La
Paz and Mohave counties bordering the states of California and
Nevada. Russ was a founding board member of the Yuma Community
Foundation and continues to serve on the local advisory board.
He has provided leadership to the growth and development of
the ACF affiliate network for more than a decade, serving as
the first chair of the statewide Affiliate Council.
ACF RESOURCES
ACF has recently published the Arizona Philanthropy Indicators, a powerful tool to organize philanthropy as a resource for addressing community and economic development. The Indicators measure both the propensity to give and the capacity to give at the ZIP code level. These indicators tell us that there is untapped potential within Arizona to utilize individual philanthropy to enhance the quality of life for all Arizonans. These indicators document an unprecedented inter-generational Transfer of Wealth in Arizona over the next 50 years, including a potential of $8.4 billion for philanthropy in rural Arizona alone. The southeastern states pioneered the Indicators through the Southern Rural Development Initiative. The full report is available at the ACF Web site
AN INNOVATIVE SYSTEM OF AFFILIATED FOUNDATIONS
We
believe in local philanthropy
ACF is a national leader in
the development of affiliated community foundations and has
organized a decentralized statewide affiliate network to build
communities through the development of local philanthropy.
The statewide network includes 13 affiliated foundations in
small town, rural, and tribal Arizona. ACF's Affiliate division and Programs department coordinates efforts to deliver philanthropic
services focused on Arizona's diverse populations.
Some examples of ACF initiatives that relate to the US-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership include:
- Arizona Home Town Competitiveness - Arizona Home Town Competitiveness is a partnership with the AZ Rural Development Council. AZRDC representatives traveled to Nebraska to learn about and become certified organizers of their successful community and economic development framework entitled Home Town Competitiveness. These representatives then launched a pilot program in the border community of Douglas, Arizona in collaboration with the ACF Programs Department The Douglas pilot resulted in successful committee work in each of the four pillars of the program: Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Youth, and Philanthropy. Their activities have resulted in a business mentorship program, a youth entrepreneurship project, and the creation of a community fund. The Douglas pilot has also yielded knowledge about how to adapt the HTC model to Arizona and generated excitement to expand into other Arizona communities.
- Strengthening Rural Arizona - ACF is asking individual and corporate donors to help build endowments that will support and strengthen its rural affiliates in their efforts to create sustainable communities throughout Arizona through this new initiative. Like rural areas throughout our nation, rural Arizona struggles to receive its fair share of resources. This initiative seeks to empower people in rural areas to affect change that benefits their communities, making Arizona stronger for all its residents. To jump-start this effort, the Stardust Charitable Fund has offered a 1-to-2 matching challenge grant of $1 million. This means the impact of donor gifts will be significantly enhanced - not only because of this generous match, but through the income-generating power of endowment. Among other activities, the rural endowments will enable communities across Arizona to mobilize resources, focus their fund-raising efforts on meeting community needs and to capture their share of the transfer of wealth that will take place in these communities.
- A Campaign for Working Families is a community development strategy to enhance opportunities for increasing family assets and income. As part of this strategy, ACF is implementing a pilot family support and community investment program to promote Earned Income Tax Credits (EITC) and Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) as tools for helping low-income families move out of poverty. The program is structured as a partnership with public and private organizations, including the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Pilot implementation sites include the border communities of Douglas, Nogales, Yuma and South Tucson.
- Arizona Hispanics in Partnership (AZHIP) is a collaborative effort with nonprofit organizations and public and private foundations to advance the efforts of the philanthropic community to serve the Latino community. On February 19, 2004, a forum was held to solicit a statewide response from more than 100 community leaders on Latino issues in areas of early childhood education, K-12, medical and behavioral health care, immigration, civil rights and workforce development. Future efforts of the collaborative will address issues identified during the forum and emphasize strategies for pooling local and national funding to support Latino nonprofit organizations.
WHAT CAN WE SHARE?
ACF's website www.azfoundation.org provides a centralized cache of philanthropic information that is available 24 hours a day. It serves as a philanthropic marketplace, providing a donor and community charitable information exchange. It also includes information on giving for all major users - donors, professional advisors, private foundations, nonprofits seeking grants, and the community foundation staf.
ACF'S AFFILIATE NETWORK
The ACF Affiliate network includes four community foundations
on the US-Mexico Border, including the Cochise and Yuma affiliates
that are participating in the Border Philanthropy Partnership.
The Greater Green Valley Community Foundation and Patagonia
Regional Community Foundations serve respectively a retirement
community and two clusters of small rural towns and villages.
In Santa Cruz County, Patagonia Community Foundation's most important success is its Youth and Family Services Coalition. The Coalition brings together service providers, most based in urban centers outside this region, with schools, parents, law enforcement, local government leaders and community members to strengthen support of youth and families. The Coalition is focused on creating positive conditions rather than services for symptoms; viewing people as resources, mobilizing regional assets first before leveraging resources from the outside and promoting youth leadership.