From "International Connections". WINGS-CF
http://www.wingsweb.org

SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS TO
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION DEVELOPMENT

Global funders

Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. The Mott Foundation based in Flint, Michigan (US), has been a consistent supporter and promoter of community foundations in the United States and around the world since the late 1970s, taking its lead from its President, William S White, and his personal commitment to the community foundation concept. 
The Mott Foundation takes a long-term approach to community foundation development. It realises that there are no short cuts to creating strong community philanthropy organisations at the grass roots level, and that community foundations need more than just financial resources to be successful. It has provided direct grants and challenge grants to community foundations to help build their endowments and for innovative grants programmes. It has also recognised the benefit of building strong infrastructure by its core funding for grantmaker associations and their programmes for technical assistance, information provision and networking opportunities.

Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation’s interest in community foundations goes back at least to the 1960s when it took notice of community foundations and their potential to be a force for social change in American society. At that time the Ford Foundation embarked on a national programme of major grants to selected US community foundations to promote more innovative grantmaking and foundations that were more socially active. 

It has also supported these core issues outside the US. With support from the Ford Foundation and the Atkinson Charitable Foundation (Canada), Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) created its Social Justice Initiative which has allowed CFC and its members to begin to explore the role community foundations can play in social justice issues. Ford is also supporting CFC’s work on diversity and on leadership. The Ford Foundation is supporting peace building as well by providing operating support for Foundations for Peace, a global network devoted to peace building in societies torn apart by violent conflict.

World Bank. The World Bank is becoming a major player in the global community foundation movement. In 2003 the World Bank, with major financial support from the Mott and Ford foundations, began its Community Foundation Initiative. The first phase of the project was aimed to identify “three to six community foundation pilot projects in a variety of countries to demonstrate the model’s ability to empower communities to enhance and sustain community driven development” and to build “internal knowledge and interest within the World Bank in community foundations as a development tool.”5
The Community Foundation Initiative is a partnership between the World Bank and the International Committee of the Council on Foundations. The Bank hired Dr Juraj Mesik of the Slovak Republic, the founder of the first community foundation in Central and Eastern Europe, to be its Senior Community Foundations Specialist.
The Bank is currently entering Phase II of the Initiative. Phase II will continue to raise awareness about community foundations within the World Bank, integrate the community foundation concept into the Bank’s planning and operations, and assist community foundation start-up in selected countries. This will be done by ensuring that pilot community foundations start well, by expanding the number and areas of pilot countries, by deepening the World Bank’s own understanding and expertise, and by broadening the scope of tools and mechanisms within the World Bank to advance community foundations.
A grant to create a Global Fund for Community Foundations was approved by the World Bank in June 2005. It is initially a three-year project that has four grantmaking streams, which will be available to World Bank client countries:

- technical assistance and capacity building for community foundations,
- grants to support community foundations (seed funding, challenge grants),
- learning and knowledge sharing, and
- monitoring and evaluation.

USAID. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has been instrumental in supporting community foundation development, although thus far it has had no defined community foundation strategy. Its efforts are decentralised, and decisions are made on a country by country basis. Within the headquarters of USAID there is a growing interest in the community foundation concept and its potential for democracy building and for community development, even though currently it must rely on its local in-country offices to request assistance for community foundation development. USAID’s support for community organisations and foundations that have received support for community foundation development from USAID include:

• Baltic-American Partnership Fund (BAPF), an independent foundation, co-funded with by the Soros Foundation, working in the three Baltic states.
• Inter-American Foundation (IAF), an independent agency of the United States government, working in Latin America and the Caribbean, and a funder of the US-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership
• Counterpart International-Bulgaria, a USAID contractor, working in Bulgaria to develop community foundations as part of its Bulgaria Community Fund and Social Enterprise Programme through 2006.
• Kenan Institute Asia (KIAsia), an independent organisation working in Thailand, received endowment and grant support from USAID and is incubating the community foundation development effort there, primarily by providing in-kind support to Friendship to Community Foundation’s Community Foundation Initiative.
• Ekopolis Foundation, a private foundation in the Slovak Republic, received funding from USAID, in partnership with the Mott Foundation, for community foundation development from 1999-2002.



Open Society Institute (the Soros Foundation). OSI and the Soros national foundations have played a significant role in promoting and developing community foundations in a number of Central and Eastern European countries, including Poland, the Slovak Republic, Bulgaria and in the Baltic states, through the Baltic American Partnership Fund, which it created in conjunction with USAID. The Open Society Institute’s East East Program: Partnership beyond borders, which supports international exchanges, also made scholarship funds available through the Soros national foundations for participants attending the Symposium in Berlin.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation is supporting the US-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership and has made another grant to the Synergos Institute for community foundation capacity building in other parts of Mexico. However, the core focus of the Foundation's work in Mexico is not on community foundations, but on improving the enabling environment for philanthropy. The philanthropy component of their grantmaking is under review and no new activity is anticipated over the next year. The Foundation assisted the Symposium in Berlin through scholarship support for community foundation practitioners from its Mexico grantees.

The W K Kellogg Foundation has been a major supporter of community foundations in the US, and especially in Michigan through support for the Council of Michigan Foundations and its community foundations group. It has programmatic interests in Latin America and has made grants to several community foundations there as partners in advancing its programme interests. It also made available technical assistance funds for participants attending the Berlin Symposium from these community foundations.

The Freudenberg Stiftung, a private foundation in Germany, has been working in the Simin Han area of Tuzla in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It helped create the Community Foundation Simin Han to continue the projects it had initiated and to “place further development measures into the hands of the citizens”.

The Charities Aid Foundation (UK) was an early promoter of community foundations in the UK and provided support for community foundation development there. Its Russian office, CAF-Russia, brought the community foundation concept to Russia and helped establish the first community foundations there under extremely difficult circumstances. CAF-Russia continues to support community foundation development in Russia.

National organisations that support the development of community foundations

Date of Formation	Country	Organisation
1949	US	Council on Foundations
1991	UK	Community Foundation Network
1992	Canada	Community Foundations of Canada
1994	Russia	Charities Aid Foundation - Russia
1996	Germany	Bertelsmann Foundation
1997	Italy	Fondazione Cariplo
1998	Europe	European Foundation Centre’s Community Philanthropy Initiative
1998	Poland	Academy for the Development of Philanthropy in Poland
1998	Belgium	King Baudouin Foundation
1998	Baltic states	Baltic American Partnership Fund – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
1998	Mexico	Mexican Center for Philanthropy (CEMEFI)
1998	South Africa	Southern African Grantmakers Association
1999	Brazil	Institute for the Development of Social Investment (IDIS)
2001	Bulgaria	Counterpart-Bulgaria
2002	Philippines	Association of Foundations
2004	Thailand	Friendship to Community Foundation