For Greater Atlanta is a storytelling series celebrating the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta’s 75th anniversary. Each story revisits a defining moment or movement in Atlanta’s history, exploring how the Foundation partnered with donors, nonprofits and community leaders to help the region meet the moment and build the greater Atlanta we know today.

By the end of the 20th century, Atlanta was changing. 

For generations, conversations about race and community in the region had largely centered on Black and white Atlantans. But by the 1990s, immigration and demographic change were reshaping communities across metro Atlanta. New neighbors brought different languages, cultures, faiths, and traditions, adding to the richness of an increasingly diverse region. 

That growth also raised an important question: How could a changing Atlanta build stronger connections across its differences? 

For the Community Foundation, answering that question began with listening and learning. 

Understanding a Changing Atlanta 

Key Moment: Demographic Research and Intergroup Relations Program (1999) 

In 1999, with research support from the Ford and Mott Foundations, the Community Foundation began studying metro Atlanta’s changing demographics and exploring how philanthropy could better connect with diverse communities. 

That work became the Intergroup Relations Program, an intentional effort to learn from diverse communities, build relationships with nonprofit leaders, and expand who had access to the Foundation’s programs and resources.  

The goal wasn’t simply to understand demographic trends on paper. It was to build relationships with the people behind those changes. 

Building Connections in Communities 

Key Moments: One Region Atlanta (2013) 

Early projects brought together immigrant families, longtime residents, nonprofit leaders, and neighborhood organizations in ways that fostered understanding and shared purpose.  

In Clarkston, the Community ty Foundation began supporting nonprofits serving a growing refugee community. Along Buford Highway, it supported an effort with Vietnamese residents and the Atlanta Community Food Bank that brought newer and longtime Atlantans together around a community garden. 

That commitment eventually evolved into One Region Atlanta, an initiative designed to bring people together across differences of faith, culture, race, and place of origin. Through community conversations, arts events, service projects, and educational programs, participants explored what united them while honoring the experiences that made each community unique. 

As former Community Foundation CEO Alicia Philipp reflected, the work was about “creating connections and capacity.” 

The Intergroup Relations Program also helped the Foundation develop relationships with a broader network of diverse nonprofits and leaders, opening pathways for those organizations to participate in other Foundation programs. 

Finding Common Ground Through Faith 

Key Moment: Higher Ground (2010) 

A decade later, the Foundation saw another opportunity to build connection across differences. 

Four respected Atlanta faith leaders had recently retired: Imam Plemon El-Amin, Rabbi Alvin Sugarman, the Rev. Joe Roberts of Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Presbyterian minister Joanna Adams. They represented different faith traditions, but shared deep respect for one another and a commitment to Atlanta. 

The Community Foundation invited them to come together as Higher Ground, creating an interfaith voice on issues facing the region. 

From 2010 to 2015, the leaders wrote op-eds and blog posts, appeared in the media, and spoke at public events across Atlanta. Their purpose wasn’t to erase their differences. It was to demonstrate what becomes possible when people approach those differences with respect, trust, and a willingness to engage. 

Higher Ground reflected an idea that had been developing through the Foundation’s work for more than a decade: belonging doesn’t require everyone to be the same. It requires creating spaces where differences can be acknowledged while relationships grow stronger. 

That momentum continues today. Each year, the Community Foundation convenes “Neil Asks,” an endowed program that carries forward the legacy of L. Neil Williams, Jr.—a civic-minded Atlanta leader whose life exemplified curiosity, service, and thoughtful engagement. The series is rooted in the belief that asking meaningful questions, listening across differences, and sharing diverse perspectives can guide communities toward greater hope, innovation, and understanding. 

Helping Atlanta Meet The Moment

Atlanta today is even more diverse than it was when the Community Foundation began this work in 1999. 

The languages spoken, faiths practiced, cultures represented, and experiences lived across Greater Atlanta continue to evolve. That diversity is one of the region’s greatest strengths, but connection doesn’t happen automatically. 

It requires curiosity, trust, and opportunities for people to know one another. 

For philanthropy, that means listening beyond familiar networks, building relationships with organizations rooted in diverse communities, and supporting the people already creating connection and belonging every day. 

From Clarkston and Buford Highway to the Intergroup Relations Program and Higher Ground, the Community Foundation has learned that bringing people together doesn’t mean asking them to leave their differences behind. It means creating room for those differences while finding the shared hopes that connect us. 

Meeting the moment means helping an increasingly diverse Atlanta become not only a place where more people live, but a place where more people belong. 

Because Greater Atlanta is strongest when everyone can see themselves as part of its future. 

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