COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS | FUNDERS | MANAGING PARTNERS

COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS

OUR MISSION

The Brownsville Community Foundation, Inc. (BCF) was founded in 1997 with the mission of improving the quality of life for residents of Brownsville, Texas, a city on the U.S.-Mexico border at the Gulf of Mexico. The BCF is creating a permanent endowment to address the region’s substantial needs. At the same time, the Foundation provides a vehicle and a service for donors with varied interests, and serves as a resource and catalyst for local nonprofits. We direct our human and financial resources to initiatives in education, arts and culture, the environment, human services, and health care.

Over the past seven years, the BCF has received over $4.5 million in from private foundations, corporations, government agencies and individual donors. The largest of these, a grant of $2.5 million, has allowed BCF to purchase land slated for development and convert it into a National Park site, thus protecting the land’s historical value to the community and generating operating income for BCF into the future.

THE COMMUNITY OF BROWNSVILLE

Brownsville is the poorest U.S. city with a population over 100,000, with fully one-third of its inhabitants living below the poverty level. Its rapidly increasing population, which is over 91% Hispanic, faces great challenges related to their health, housing, education, employment and environment. Though Brownsville can boast of many exemplary nonprofit agencies, the needs they serve are great and their resources are scarce. The BCF strives to act as a focal point for the receipt and distribution of funds to address these challenges.

OUR SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY

The BCF has supported – with technical assistance and funding – dozens of community-based organizations over the past seven years. Just a few of these include:

Brownsville READS!, a coalition of community members and educators recognized by President Bush and many others for its work to promote research-based reading instruction in the public and private schools of Brownsville. Many believe that reducing the rate of illiteracy is the single most important challenge facing the community.

Monica’s House, the Cameron County Children’s Advocacy Center was the Rio Grande Valley’s first organization to address the needs of abused children. Monica’s House now has two locations and serves hundreds of abused children every year.

BCF developed the public-private partnership that resulted in the construction of a $2.7 million Heritage Visitor Center at the Palo Alto National Historic Park. The Center will generate economic development and educational opportunities in perpetuity. A $500,000 grant from the Houston Endowment to BCF provided the impetus for matching local and congressional funding.

BCF has been instrumental in the establishment of the nonprofit Rio Grande Institute, which has implemented projects in the community focused on economic development, environmental protection, disaster prevention, and tourism. On behalf of the Institute, BCF has secured and managed almost $300,000 in government grants.

BCF partnered with the Piper Foundation to administer Fiesta of Homes, a down-payment assistance program, which was focused on helping single parent, first-time homeowners.

In late 2002, BCF hosted Hispanics in Philanthropy; a program that explored the role philanthropy can play in supporting regional integration and transnational economic and cultural linkages.

THE US-MEXICO BORDER PHILANTHROPY PARTNERSHIP

Participation in the Partnership has already resulted in closer cooperation between the BCF and the Fundación Comunitaria de Matamoros, which serves residents of Brownsville’s sister city across the border. This year, with the assistance of the Partnership, the BCF is organizing its programs and building its assets to more strategically addresses community needs by complementing the work of local nonprofit agencies.