Grand Rapids Community Foundation

The mission of Grand Rapids Community Foundation is to “build and manage the community's permanent endowment and lead the community to strengthen the lives of its people."

We are a community foundation, created with gifts from many community donors and invested for growth and preservation for the long-term benefit of the community. A percentage of income from the Community Foundation's endowment is invested in the community in the form of grants, investments, and scholarship with the goal of improving the quality of life for residents of Grand Rapids and all of Kent County. Grand Rapids Community Foundation strives to serve all members of the community by creating a philanthropic vehicle enabling donors to achieve their goals by investing in the issues they care about and creating a lasting legacy. It also serves as a resource for community problem-solving and individual and organizational capacity-building.

Our goals are to:
• Lead significant social change
• Grow current and future philanthropic resources
• Engage donors to make a difference
• Deliver organizational excellence

Strategies:
Grand Rapids Community Foundation engages a variety of strategies to accomplish the broad organizational goals listed above. These strategies have changed and will change over time, as the Foundation responds to the needs of the community:

• Community systems change –We actively engage in the community around our strategic investment priorities: Prosperity, Environment, Health, Engagement, Neighborhoods and Education. We create systems change by leading initiatives, engaging in community advocacy and working toward community improvement.
• Community capacity – We invest in the community through grants, initiatives and impact investments, and leverage regional, state and national resources to the fullest advantage, leading to increased community and nonprofit capacity.
• Philanthropic leadership – We provide community education on the importance of philanthropy and community service, with an eye toward the future and the next generation of community supporters; we serve as a vehicle for giving, by facilitating donor advised grants and scholarships; and we encourage nonprofit sustainability by providing investment services so nonprofit organizations and local communities can create their own endowed funds. We also encourage donor engagement in the community, offering opportunities for donor advisors to co-invest with the community foundation, around our priorities, and theirs.
• Growth and preservation of community assets – We strive to provide the highest levels of customer service to our donors, the nonprofit community and the community at large. We honor donor intent and invest the resources entrusted to us carefully and with intention. We engage in administrative efficiency to enhance and preserve the use of community resources.

Capabilities
Grand Rapids Community Foundation has flourished as a philanthropic leader in Kent County for more than 90 years. It employs a staff of 30 experienced, highly qualified individuals; a Board of 12 respected community leaders – including youth representation; over a dozen committees comprised of community volunteers; and thousands of individual donors. The Foundation holds and manages assets of over $330 million dollars and distributed over $13 million in grants and scholarships to the community in its most recent fiscal year. The Community Foundation has won numerous awards for its marketing and public relations materials, grant-making, and organizational excellence. The Community Foundation's capacity to provide resources and tools for the community along with its commitment to accountability, leadership, and stewardship, contributes to its credibility in the community.

Grand Rapids Community Foundation has had a significant impact on Kent County since it was founded in 1922. Referring back to our mission: “To build and manage the community's permanent endowment and lead the community to strengthen the lives of its people" and our goals:

Lead Significant Social Change
• Grand Rapids Community Foundation engagement in community initiatives has led to systems change at the state and local levels. Perspective 21!, led to reform of State Department of Human Services policies related to substantiation of child abuse and neglect, and the Community Foundation-supported Kent School Services Network has been replicated in other Michigan communities. The Challenge Scholars program is serving as a pilot to create a culture that assumes students will pursue post-secondary education, with educational supports and promise of a scholarship for sixth grade students when they graduate from high school. Investments in housing and economic prosperity, environmental issues, access to healthcare and chronic disease prevention have led to changes in systems of care and local policy. The Community Foundation is currently promoting community culture change around diversity and inclusion, working with donors to increase nonprofit cultural competency.
• Nonprofit capacity – Community Foundation grants have always served to increase nonprofit capacity. In addition, we manage a funding collaborative that specifically supports nonprofit capacity-building.

Engage donors to make a difference
• Grand Rapids Community Foundation serves as a vehicle for giving back to the community, providing myriad opportunities for donors to support the causes they care about: donor advised funds, community funds, scholarships, nonprofit agency funds, and unrestricted giving provide the opportunity for donors to create a legacy that will survive them.

Grow current and future philanthropic resources
• The Community Foundation has grown substantially from its initial gift of $25 in 1922 to receipt of gifts and bequests totaling more than $9 million in its last fiscal year alone. Assets have increased to more than $300 million and grant funds distributed in the community totaled nearly $10 million in 2014-2015.
•The Community Foundation has invested heavily in community infrastructure, contributing grant dollars and social capital to many local arts and civic institutions in the community. In addition, we have invested in local educational institutions, and in community and neighborhood planning efforts. We have also provided significant support for environmental infrastructure (Purchase of Development rights, water quality, tree canopy and public open space), affordable housing, and neighborhood business districts.

Deliver organizational excellence
• The Community Foundation's headquarters serve as resource to the community by offering free meeting space to local non-profits. Over 8,100 attendees have visited since November 2008.