Our History

A renewed focus for a stronger, brighter, healthier Atlanta.

Since its inception in 1951, the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta has focused, however imperfectly, on improving the lives of those throughout our region by giving to programs that help it thrive.

For its first 65 years, and in collaborations with a growing cohort of philanthropists, the Foundation invited donors to invest in the causes and opportunities that resonated with them most. In 2018, as a result of globally-regarded Brookings Institute naming Atlanta the #1 city for income inequality in the country, the Community Foundation’s Board of Directors made the decision to turn its focus to this critical community need, and work began that year on fostering equitable outcomes.

This focus on equity and shared prosperity is made possible because throughout its early years, board members, advisors and employees focused on sage investment strategies and building a portfolio of high-quality, differentiated donor services that provided an elevated level of impact compared to commercial funds.

Today, the Community Foundation exists to inspire and lead our region toward equity and shared prosperity for all.

Strickland Fund

George and Pearl Strickland open Foundation’s first Black Scholarship Fund.

King papers

Mayor Franklin, the City, and CFGA buy the King papers to keep them in Atlanta.

Alicia Philipp

Alicia Philipp led the Foundation for 43 years. She retired to Portugal in 2020.

Planet Philanthropy

Our focus on multi-generational giving includes fun programs for kids!

Vote Your Voice

Grassroots programs educate Americans on civil democracy.

COVID Fund

Over the 18-month pandemic, we raised $30 million for health and social justice.

70th anniversary

In 2021, we celebrated 70 with 4 days of free access to the National Center for Civil & Human Rights.

Camp Best Friends

With 28 Black children murdered in 1980, we opened Camp Best Friends, providing safety and fun for 250,000 kids.

An Almanac of Memorable Moments

  • Atlanta’s four largest banks — Citizens and Southern National (C&S), First National, Fulton National and Trust Company of Georgia – create the Metropolitan Foundation of Atlanta.

  • A. B. Padgett is named first executive director, which establishes offices in the Candler Building. The Foundation makes its first series of grants — totaling more than $450,000 to 119 nonprofit groups in Atlanta.

  • Padgett left the Foundation and Frank Robinson was hired as our new part-time leader. Robinson spent the other 50% of his time working for the Chamber of Commerce where he developed Leadership Atlanta. During Robinson’s tenure, the Foundation hit a milestone, distributing $1 million in grants to 339 nonprofit organizations.

  • Jimmy Carter was Georgia’s governor, there was a national recession, and the Foundation was flatlining. At 25 years of age, it had $7 million in assets, and minimal activity. Dan Sweat, president of Central Atlanta Progress, saw potential and led the Foundation to become a corporate entity. Federal tax regulations clarify donor-advised funds (DAFs), causing their popularity to soar. Foundation names Alicia Philipp executive director in ‘77, and later, President — a role she’ll hold for more than 40 years.

  • Foundation creates first training sessions for nonprofits that evolve into the Nonprofit Resource Center (NRC) focused on nonprofit effectiveness. The NRC received grant funding from the Woodruff and Campbell Foundations to expand. Steady growth continued for 13 years, and the incubated project became the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, which opened in 1994.

  • In the early days of the AIDS crisis, we make the first grant to fund a new education program taught by the Atlanta Gay Center to the Fulton County Health Department.

  • Because of the 28 murders of Black children in Atlanta between 1979-1981, the Community Foundation, Coca-Cola Foundation, and the City of Atlanta partner to create Camp Best Friends, a safe summer recreation program for children. As of 2019, more than 250,000 children have benefited from this program.

  • In response to significant media coverage that nonprofits were not as arduous or demanding as their for-profit counterparts, the Foundation establishes the annual Managing for Excellence Award to recognize governance and managerial achievements of local nonprofit organizations. Award-winners received a $75,000 general operating support grant and free counsel from Boston Consulting Group.

  • Foundation announces the George and Pearl Strickland Scholarship Fund to support students attending historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) at the Atlanta University Center.

  • We formed the Atlanta Women’s Fund to promote women’s issues, to teach women about philanthropy, and how to serve on nonprofit boards. The Fund spun-off as the Atlanta Women’s Foundation in 1998.

  • First community foundation to partner with the Ford Foundation to raise dollars for preventative education and direct care for patients with AIDS.

  • The Community Foundation creates, develops and nurtures a number of wildly successful funds — including the Neighborhood Fund, Atlanta AIDS Partnership Fund, the Atlanta Women’s Fund and the Metropolitan Atlanta Arts Fund, as well as local funds in Clayton, Cobb and Newton counties in an effort to broaden regional impact.

  • Our name changes to The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, along with new logo and offices in the Hurt building.

  • Ingrid Saunders Jones becomes the first woman and first Black Chair for the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Board of Directors.

  • The Foundation increases emphasis on planned giving, with stronger outreach to professional advisors, enhanced communications and donor services experts. Planned giving assets reach $334 million.

  • With research grants from the Ford and Mott Foundations, we set out to understand the complex, demographic changes in the region, how to connect with new ethnic groups and respond to needs. This ultimately led to a genesis of effort in supporting nonprofits in Clarkston as the center for refugees and to a Vietnamese farmer’s market along Buford Highway with the Atlanta Community Food Bank.

  • Foundation launches the Metro Atlanta Youth Opportunity Initiative in partnership with Annie E. Casey Foundation, the United Way, the Department of Human Services, the Department of Family and Children’s Services, and a small circle of Foundation donors. This was the first direct community service initiative for the Foundation, which became statewide, and ran through 2006.

  • Foundation launches the Center for Family Philanthropy to engage donors and their families in multi-generational philanthropy. One of the Center’s signature initiatives, “Planet Philanthropy,” was a multi-day summer camp, which taught youth the power of giving back. The Center begins providing an elite suite of services to DAF holders with funds of $250,000 or more or planned gifts of $1 million or more.

  • The Board of Directors’ commissions Georgia State University to research African-American philanthropy, learning that Black Atlantans in the region give a higher percentage to philanthropy than any other racial group and also volunteer time at a higher level.

  • The Foundation opens the Morgan County Fund, focused on enriching the nonprofit ecosystem in the cities of Madison, Rutledge and their surrounding neighborhoods.

  • Foundation launches Healthy Belvedere, a program to address racial and ethnic healthcare disparities in south DeKalb County. Kaiser Permanente provides the Foundation $2 million over six years to fund adult education and youth activities, which ignited a donor giving circle to improve street lights, install sidewalks, create an annual community garden, and implement an annual recurring neighborhood cleanup.

  • The Foundation, in collaboration with the City of Atlanta and then-Mayor Shirley Franklin, leads a fundraising campaign to buy the personal papers of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from Sotheby’s in New York City for $32 million. Morehouse College becomes the archivist for the Papers, which are on display at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta.

  • In the midst of the Great Recession, we create the Nonprofit Bridge Loan Fund to help nonprofits facing cash flow problems and challenges accessing loan capital. We also made a significant shift to general operating grants (versus specific program or capital) which demonstrated trust in the nonprofit to do what’s best in the fulfillment of its mission.

  • The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation awards Grady Memorial Hospital – metro Atlanta’s only nationally verified Level 1 trauma center – a $200 million grant for capital needs, including upgrades to medical equipment and medical records systems. Woodruff gives a portion of that — $50 million — to the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta—to disburse to Grady over a 12-month period, contingent upon the hospital meeting certain conditions, among them, shifting its management from a board of government appointees to a private, nonprofit corporation.

  • The Foundation, the Kendeda Fund and SouthFace partnered during the Great Recession to launch “Grants to Green”, providing sustainability assessments for metro Atlanta nonprofit facilities, helping over 200 nonprofits save over $10 million annually on energy and water costs.

  • In collaboration with the Atlanta Regional Commission, Emory University and Georgia State, we formalized a regional data warehouse named Neighborhood Nexus with 6,000 data variables about regional information harvested from late 90’s work done by the Carter Center to understand inequities in Atlanta. Today, Neighborhood Nexus thrives as a partnership between us, the United Way, the ARC and the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

  • The Foundation celebrates its 60th anniversary with more than $500 million in total assets, a growth of $137 million through new and existing funds, and a milestone – sending out $70 million in grants and support to nonprofits locally, nationally and internationally.

  • The Foundation convenes four faith leaders – Iman Plemon El-Amin, Rabbi Alvin Sugarman, Ebeneezer Baptist’s Joe Roberts, and Presbyterian minister Joanna Adams, known collectively as “Higher Ground” – to encourage interfaith dialogue and inspire action on key issues facing metro Atlanta.

  • The Foundation announces the creation of the Lorde-Rustin Giving Circle, named for social activist Audre Lorde and civil rights leader Bayard Rustin. With a focus on increasing literacy among children of color and supporting LGBTQ+ youth of color, the group provides annual grant opportunities, and has received matching grants from Out in the South Fund.

  • In response to data indicating that Atlanta has the lowest social mobility rate in the U.S., the Foundation partners with the Joseph B. Whitehead Foundation and Atlanta Public Schools to create Achieve Atlanta to engage and align philanthropic, civic and public resources and programs to support students’ journeys to and through college. At the time of Achieve Atlanta’s founding, less than one in four ninth-graders in Atlanta Public Schools graduated from college within six years of graduating from high school. Since inception, over 1,000 scholars have graduated from post-secondary schools and over 5,000 are in the pipeline.

  • In partnership with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Kendeda Fund, the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta launched the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (AWBI) to close the racial wealth gap in metro Atlanta. Significant work to launch many for-profit/nonprofit partnerships for AWBI were stymied, but its resilience and work with Kendeda has ultimately produced a flourishing education-focused intermediary leveraging ideas, people and capital in the region.

  • In a response to nonprofits expressed needs, the Foundation launches an innovative program with Catch-A-Fire, the nation’s largest virtual network of executive volunteers solving urgent nonprofit problems. The four year program served over 250 nonprofits through efforts involving accounting, data analysis, marketing, leadership, organizational design, and more.

  • The Foundation, in partnership with the Atlanta Regional Commission, Metro Atlanta Chamber and the United Way of Grater Atlanta, launch Learn4Life to scale proven ideas to achieve better education outcomes for 600,000 students across metro Atlanta in reading, math and graduation rates. Leadership is comprised of eight metro Atlanta school districts, as well as dozens of business, community and nonprofit organizations. Learn4Life serves students across eight participating school districts: Atlanta Public Schools, City Schools of Decatur, Clayton County Schools, Cobb County Schools, DeKalb County Schools, Fulton County Schools, Gwinnett County Public Schools, and Marietta City Schools.

  • Mailchimp, the world’s largest marketing automation platform, approaches the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta with one request: grow corporate citizens by helping our employees become more engaged in the community. Together, we created MailChimp Community College, a 15-week, hands-on series of expert lectures, panels and site visits around the subject of equity in our community. Civic leaders, community organizers, nonprofit executives and seasoned philanthropists meet for weekly, half-day sessions that address topics such as affordable housing, criminal justice, education, infrastructure and poverty.

  • The Foundation launches GoATL a revolving impact investment fund designed to support the long-term sustainability of programs and solutions to address the region’s areas of greatest need.

  • The Foundation embarks on a $10 million partnership with Southern Poverty Law Center, across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi focused on sourcing nonprofits working in grassroots programs to educate consumers on civil democracy and the power of their voice.

  • In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we partner with the United Way to launch the Greater Atlanta COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund. Together, our organizations raise and deploy over $30 million to more than 480 nonprofits during the 18-month plague.

  • In the COVID-summer of the race for health and social justice, theaters and other nonprofit arts organizations were shuttering from the epidemic’s financial wrath. The Foundation’s Metro Atlanta Arts Fund deployed emergency funding to arts organizations, and became the poster-child for inequity when research determined that 90% of its grants were made to arts organizations founded or led by white Atlantans.

  • Alicia Philipp retires after 43 years at the helm of the Foundation and the Board appoints Frank Fernandez to succeed her as CEO following a national search.

  • The Foundation launches TogetherATL, a five-year strategic blueprint for how the Foundation, along with our partners, will champion equity and shared prosperity for everyone who calls metro Atlanta home.

  • Along with partners including the Woodruff Foundation, Truist, Wells Fargo, the City of Atlanta, and more, the Community Foundation launches a $300 million affordable housing program with an objective to build 6,000 safe and affordable housing units by 2026. Doug Hooker is named Advisory Board chair, succeeding Susan Grant.

  • Alongside the City of Atlanta, Fernandez galvanizes a team of Foundation experts, board members, and partners to provide safe housing for 206 tenant families of the condemned Forest Cove apartment complex in Atlanta’s Thomasville Heights neighborhood.

  • At the third anniversary of Fernandez’ leadership, research supports his evolution of Foundation products and services, increasing our work with national equity funders including Blue Meridian, SPLC, Wells Fargo and Woodruff, to a 40% match to revenue by the Foundation’s long-term donors. These programs enable the Foundation to push equity initiatives for neighborhoods and systems at a faster rate than before.