Community Foundation application portal update

As the region’s preeminent philanthropic institution, the Community Foundation is uniquely poised to inspire philanthropy to increase the vitality of our region and the well-being of all residents.

At the end of the day, the Community Foundation is working to:

• Advance equity through opportunity for all Atlantans in our region
• Inspire philanthropy to advance equity through the nonprofits our donors support
• Drive operational excellence to increase inspired philanthropy

To that end, we have updated the online organization profile to include information regarding race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability among organization leadership, staff and communities served. We recognized that the previous form tapped your already stretched capacity so we have also streamlined it, reducing the amount of total information required.

For the Community Foundation to thoughtfully pursue and advance equity in our communities, we first need to understand the demographics of the organizations serving our communities and the communities being served. Using these demographics, we’ll be better able to understand the need and impact being made in our communities and assess our own practices to drive decision-making following our north star, putting equity and community at the heart of our grantmaking.

We understand many nonprofits may not have capacity to accurately collect or report on the demographic data of their staff, board and constituents. The data is not required for grant eligibility.

We acknowledge that right now, in the absence of so much of this data, we cannot know exactly what the data will tell us but we are hopeful to know it will help us to refine our grantmaking strategy and practice, ultimately helping you help our communities even better. Additionally, we are committed to being as transparent as possible regarding data collection at every opportunity – which is why we will also collect and share this data publicly about our own organization, board, staff and volunteers and we are committed to working with nonprofit partners, fellow funders and the broader philanthropic sector to increase equity in grantmaking.