Community Foundation Week

During the week of November 12-18, 2013, the Sonora Area Foundation joins more than 750 community foundations across America for Community Foundation Week. This annual week allows community foundations to tell the stories of lives changed, jobs created and communities transformed through philanthropy’s partnership with private and public community leaders and organizations.

The Sonora Area Foundation works every day to help address some of the most pressing issues facing our community, such as feeding the hungry, or providing shelter and clothing to those in need. As we all saw with the recent government shutdown, philanthropy provides a critical bulwark against uncertainty. Place-based philanthropy engages community leaders to improve lives through direct action.

Community foundations are independent entities that steward philanthropic resources from institutional and individual donors to local nonprofits and organizations that are the heart of strong, vibrant communities. In the past year, local examples of competitive grant making by the Foundation have been as varied as operational funds supporting the ATCAA Food Bank and the YES Partnership, animal barn area improvements at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds, emergency equipment for Tuolumne County Search and Rescue, or joining with our local Rotary Clubs to Keep Railtown Rolling.

Community foundations represent one of the fastest-growing forms of philanthropy. Every state in the United States is home to at least one community foundation-large and small, urban and rural-that is advancing solutions to a wide range of social issues. The 2012 Columbus Survey found that as the nation continues through a difficult economic recovery, grants by community foundations increased by 21% since 2006.

Keep an eye out later in November for distribution of our fall newsletter, “Giving Voice,” which this year focuses on the arts and the grant assistance that the Sonora Area Foundation provides to the arts in Tuolumne County. You will find that our efforts to encourage the arts are very closely tied to our overall mission to “strengthen the community through assisting donors, making grants and providing leadership.”