Seeing 2020: Community Foundation’s year of transformational change

by Susan Grant, Board Chair & Frank Fernandez, President & CEO

This last year impacted us foundationally – our society, our community, our organization, and both of us. COVID-19 disrupted all facets of our society and it exposed some of our region’s deepest challenges. Our community is not equitable. So many of our neighbors, especially those who that are Black, Latinx or living close to the edge of poverty, were disproportionately impacted. We are committed to not forgetting what we’ve learned, and we’re committed to working on the root causes and on solutions.

Your Community Foundation quickly pivoted to respond to what our community needed – swiftly providing relief from the pandemic’s economic, health and social fallout via a collaborative effort with the United Way – in the form of direct assistance to nonprofit and grassroots organizations who needed us the most. THANK YOU to our most generous donors who understood the urgency, and who made relief happen. In this publication, read more about our collective response, your generosity and the transformative power of partnerships and working together as we look to the future.

In the midst of the pandemic, our organization began its own internal transformation and reckoning. Under the leadership of our new President/CEO Frank Fernandez, we are simultaneously changing who we are (our culture) and what we do (our strategy). You will see us aligning our strategies with our beliefs, and making all of this explicit and transparent to staff, to community partners, and to you, our valued donors.

Ultimately, we believe these much-needed changes will be transformational and help us lead our region toward equity and a shared prosperity. We hope you will join us in the work ahead, as we imagine a region where race, class, geography and other barriers to opportunity are not predictive of outcomes, a region where greater equity for all means a greater Atlanta.

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