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COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS

COMMUNITY FOUNDATION PROFILE

A PERMANENT HOME

After spending years in rented offices, one of the Foundation’s friends, the John and Helen Murphey Foundation, donated a parcel of land that provided the impetus for a successful capital campaign. CFSA moved into its new home in September 2000. It didn’t take long for the meeting rooms to be filled to capacity on a regular basis. The striking artwork not only reflects our commitment to the arts but the individuals pictured are representatives from the various nonprofits that have received support over the years.

Founded as a public charity in 1980, the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona (CFSA) is a vital and sustainable independent organization. The Foundation serves the people of Southern Arizona south of the Gila River with an emphasis on Pima and Santa Cruz Counties, and is governed by a volunteer Board of Trustees whose makeup reflects the diversity of the communities it serves. CFSA has over $65 million in assets and, since inception, has granted over $50 million.

ENCOURAGING COLLABORATION: ONE OF CFSA's HALLMARKS

The Kinship and Adoption Resource and Education (K.A.R.E.) Family Resource Center held its official grand opening on February 7, 2002. The first one-stop resource center for kin caregivers and adoptive families in Arizona, it is a unique collaboration between Arizona’s Children Association, Casey Family Services Tucson Division, Pima County Council on Aging, the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, and the Arizona Department of Economic Security.

Prior to establishing the K.A.R.E. Center, Arizona’s Children Association conducted an extensive needs assessment. They determined that in Pima County alone there are nearly 10,000 grandparents and other relatives with the sole responsibility of caring for one or more children born to others. During focus groups, individual interviews, and a Town Hall meeting, they discovered that, in most cases, grandparents came to care for their grandchildren under unexpected, tragic circumstances such as the death of a parent, alcohol, substance or child abuse, unemployment, incarceration, poverty and illness. Kin caregivers expressed their strong desire to keep their relative children from being placed “outside the family” and the need for support services. Based on what they heard, it was anticipated that Arizona’s Children Association and its collaborators could expect to serve 300 kin caregivers and their children during the first year.

Much to their surprise, from February to September over 700 kin caregivers and their children have visited the Center, taking advantage of a wide variety of services offered including access to free legal information, therapy and counseling, emergency aid, respite, referrals to other programs, and intergenerational recreational opportunities.

Nonprofit agencies weren’t the only ones collaborating to ensure that the Center was a success. CFSA joined forces with the William Edwin Hall Foundation and one of its donor advisors to ensure that the intergenerational recreational needs of the participants were met through sponsorship of Family Fun Nights, summer camp, tutoring and computer classes and Saturday morning activities.

By providing the education, information and support necessary to enable kin caregivers to successfully create and maintain stable, permanent families for children who cannot be cared for by their biological families, everyone wins.