2020 Financial Highlights

The Community Foundation is our region’s steward of the long-term philanthropic assets that are entrusted to us for the future of greater Atlanta. At the end of 2020, our total assets were $1.2 billion.

We distributed over $172 million in grants and support in 2020. That represents 11,000 grants awarded to over 3,300 nonprofits locally, nationally and internationally. Of these grants, over 66% stayed within our metro Atlanta region. Grants were made to 31 issue areas, the top three being Education, Arts/Culture/Humanities and Human Services. Our organization distributed 14% of our total assets through grantmaking in 2020.

Our generous donors make our work possible. We received more than $139 million in gifts in 2020 and established 31 new funds. Our most popular giving vehicle is the donor-advised fund. In 2020, 72% of our total grant dollars were given through donor-advised funds.

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a strong challenge to companies, but it has also provided an opportunity for companies to demonstrate their robustness and ability to manage and take advantage of such a dynamic environment. With this backdrop, the Investment Pool was able to overcome negative returns posted early in the year to earn a positive return of 8.4% for 2020. The Foundation’s Investment Pool continues to post strong, positive three-, five- and 10-year returns: 6.9%, 9.1% and 7.9%, respectively. With capable oversight from our Board’s experienced investment committee and Mary Cernilli, director of investments, we will continue to work on achieving the investment goals that are so critical for preserving long-term philanthropic capital for the region/community.

The financial information contained in this annual report is unaudited and summarized. Our 2020 audited financial statements and 990 will be posted in November 2021. Until then, our 2019 audited statements and 990 are available here.

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