Reflecting on a year of partnership and promise

By Tim Bresnahan

February 1, 2025, marked my one-year anniversary as the VP of Advancement and Philanthropic Services at the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. As I crossed this meaningful milestone, I thought it appropriate to share some reflections from the past year and look ahead to what I hope we will accomplish together.

First and foremost, thank you! As a northerner, I had never truly experienced Southern hospitality before moving to Atlanta, and y’all delivered. Everyone I’ve met with over the last 12 months – current donors, former donors, nonprofit leaders, corporate executives, professional advisors – have been incredibly welcoming and gracious.

As I’ve spent the last year doing a lot of listening, I also want to thank those of you who have shared your honest feedback – the good, the bad and the ugly – because it will only make the Community Foundation a better partner for you to achieve your charitable giving goals. We recently shared a survey with our donors, and here are some of the highlights of the responses we received:

• You are interested in engaging with us in learning about the most pressing issues impacting Atlanta
• Being connected to and out in community is important to you
• We should continue to lift up the issues that are important to you
• Many of you are using the online portal to recommend grants and get information about your fund AND you still want to have a personal connection to the Community Foundation

Feedback happily received, and with a personal commitment from me to doing as much as I can to make the Community Foundation a valuable partner for all donors in 2025 and beyond. As I thought about what it means for us to be that valuable partner, a few things came to mind:

• The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta is a place for everyone to achieve their philanthropic goals. As I noted in a recent Chronicle of Philanthropy article, we have a responsibility to lean into the word “community” in our name, and that means the entire community. If you want to make our city and region a better place, there is a home for you here.
• Excellent client service must be at the heart of everything we do in support of our donors, therefore we will continue to invest in our systems and people. Choosing to do philanthropy with us needs to be easy. To that end, we are currently updating the online portal to make it more user friendly and provide more access to information while also exploring ways to improve the grantmaking from our donor advised funds.
• Beyond giving, we have an opportunity to foster collaboration, convening and community building – and we plan to do just that. Throughout the year, you will see invitations to join with us on site visits, at large-scale events, and through intimate, salon-style gatherings.
• Training and development for the Community Foundation staff is paramount. I am committed to ensuring that donors have access to staff who are knowledgeable about charitable giving, knowledgeable about the community, and knowledgeable about you.

I am excited about the year ahead and what we can all do together to continue to give back to our communities and invest in the organizations that are working to help solve our region’s most pressing issues. Thank you for your partnership, for welcoming me into this community, and for the incredible impact you make.