Community Foundation for Nantucket

Our mission is to strengthen Nantucket now and for future generations through informed philanthropy and community leadership. In pursuit of this mission we act as a:

Steward – by creating and managing funds to ensure a legacy for charitable solutions
Grant Maker – by awarding grants through the Nantucket Fund™ and donor-directed funds that respond to pressing needs
Charitable Resource – by maintaining in-depth knowledge of the nonprofit sector, and by providing resources for donors, nonprofits and the community
Catalyst – by mobilizing community leadership to affect collaborative solutions for Nantucket's most critical needs

The current Strategic Plan identifies three primary goals which will guide our direction for the next 3-5 years. These include:

1. Develop and maintain funds to serve as a permanent legacy for charitable giving on Nantucket.

2. Serve as the leading information and education resource on community needs for donors and nonprofit organizations across all sectors.

3. Develop best in class organizational leadership to advance the Strategic Plan.

Strategies for developing and maintaining funds include establishing the Nantucket Fund™ as the primary fund for grants directed by the Foundation. This fund provides grants to financially support and focus attention on the Island's most critical community needs and initiatives. We have increased the Nantucket Fund™ annual grant making to $300,000 per year, as a result of soliciting major donors who will made multi-year commitments at a significant level. We also will continue our efforts to provide passive, disciplined management for donor advised funds that underscore grant making opportunities for personal and institutional philanthropy, and donor-directed funds that align with identified community issues.

Strategies to achieve Goal #2 include convening community members regularly to identify key community needs, causes and possible solutions. We also maintain a comprehensive knowledge of local nonprofit organizations, with a focus on the less well funded nonprofits. We have conducted several surveys to solicit responses from our nonprofit community, most recently about how the housing crisis on Nantucket is affecting their ability to provide the services our community relies on.

Finally, our Board of Trustees is fully committed to developing our organizations staff and resources necessary to fulfill our mission, and have approved significant increases in staffing as well as professional development.

Our staff knows our nonprofit community, and collectively represent decades of experience and expertise in nonprofit as both employees and Board members of local charities on Nantucket.
We are fortunate to have a very engaged Board, who represent various sectors of our seasonal and year-round community and expand the network of support available to the Community Foundation.
We have a very active Grants Committee. Applications for the Nantucket Fund™ are solicited from our local nonprofits, and each applicant receives a site visit when appropriate from a member of this committee.
We have recently increased our staff, adding a full time Office Manager in 2016, increased our Program Director to full time and most recently a full time Development Director in 2022. These additions allow the Community Foundation to perform more thorough due diligence around grant follow up, as well as more staff support for our Grants Committee as they review grant applications.

We outlined our significant growth above, and are proud of what we have been able to accomplish in a very short period of time.
Ideally we are looking to endow the Nantucket Fund™ to a size that would ensure our legacy of philanthropy on Nantucket. Our Strategic Plan addresses strategies to achieve this goal, and both our staff and Board are looking forward to implementing them. As of February 2022, we have reached our short term $10 million goal for the Nantucket Fund endowment.
There are several ongoing community initiatives aimed at better measurement of the most pressing needs, and how effective ongoing efforts are to address them. The Community Foundation is typically a part of these initiatives in some way, but we would love to be a more significant driver of these efforts, perhaps as a major funder. We would also look to take more of a leadership role in creating some sort of Center of Nonprofit Excellence. Nantucket presents unique challenges around travel, and access to ongoing professional development, and a future goal would be to be the primary source of knowledge about and access to resources in this area. In 2018 and 2019, we were able to host a Nantucket Nonprofit Leadership Conference, a full day of professional development for our nonprofit staff and board leaders. Nationally we foresee a significant turnover in the nonprofit world as long time CEOs and EDs resign, and Nantucket is especially vulnerable due to the extremely high cost of living. We need to invest in our younger colleagues so they can continue the extraordinary work our nonprofits are doing now into the future. Sadly we were not able to host our Conference during Covid, but hope to bring some sort of professional development to our Nantucket nonprofits in 2022.