Who We Are

Overview

How are Community Foundations Different from Other Foundations?

History of the Community Foundation for South Central New York

Looking for a Speaker for Your Organization?

The Community Foundation for South Central New York is a focal point for philanthropy in the six-county region we serve, including Broome, Chenango, Cortland, Delaware, Otsego and Tioga counties.

Whether you’re a community member thinking about how you might ‘give back’ to the area you call home, a professional advisor seeking to advise a client about charitable options, or a nonprofit looking for grant funding, we’re here to help.

The Community Foundation manages an endowment – a sort of “community savings account” – comprising numerous funds either established or contributed to by individuals, families, businesses, other foundations and others. The donors’ charitable intent determines the type of fund they set up or contribute to, and from these funds grants are awarded to the region’s nonprofits for projects and programs that align with that charitable intent. There are six basic types of funds offered by the Foundation, but since one donor’s charitable intent will be different from another’s, the actual number of individual funds is much higher. (Click here to see a list of all funds currently housed at the Community Foundation.)

Since its inception in 1997, the Community Foundation has awarded nearly 1,500 grants from its various funds, for a total of approximately $5.18 million in grants.

These grants have helped to:

• Strengthen the region’s families through parent education programs

• Support its young students with preschool and after-school programs

• Purchase needed equipment for rural-based health facilities

• Assist arts organizations with special projects

• Build or renovate libraries, theatres and other community-use buildings

to provide just a few examples. The grants reflect the multiplicity of the community’s needs and the broad spectrum of our donors’ intent.

One of the six types of funds is The CommuniFund™, the Foundation’s unrestricted general fund. Many donors make contributions of all sizes to this fund, often on a periodic basis, in order to support the Foundation’s twice-yearly competitive grants program. This program is used to respond to pressing needs in our communities as presented by nonprofits that submit grant proposals for funding consideration. Grantmaking decisions are made by review panels and committees of community volunteers. Click here to see a list of recent grants issued from The CommuniFund™.

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How are Community Foundations Different from Other Foundations?

Community Foundations are:

• Public charities (unlike private foundations) that offer to the donor the maximum tax benefits allowable by law
• Usually defined by a specific geographical region
• Supported by a broad base of contributors
• Governed by a board of community volunteers who are familiar with the community and representative of the public interest

There are currently more than 700 community foundations operating in the United States.

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History of the Community Foundation for South Central New York

The Community Foundation for South Central New York was established in 1997 with a $1 million challenge grant from the Stewart W. and Willma C. Hoyt Foundation, a Broome County-based private independent foundation whose board had noted the lack of a community foundation to serve this region of New York State. Although the Hoyt Foundation’s board anticipated that it might take some time to meet their challenge with additional contributions, by the end of the Community Foundation’s first full year of operation it had met the Hoyt challenge, achieved almost $3.4 million in assets and awarded more than $100,000 in grants. Now, thirteen years later, the Community Foundation has grown to nearly $16 million and has awarded nearly $5.18 million in grants. As the number of funds established by community members grows at the Foundation in the future, so too will grow the number, and total dollar value, of grants issued each year.

In 2002, another committed group of community members established The Women’s Fund, a field-of-interest fund, at the Community Foundation. The Women’s Fund is a donor-directed fund whose goals include addressing the serious issues that especially impact women and girls in our region, building a permanent fund that can be used to help the region’s women and girls in the future, and involving donors to the fund in the process of deciding how the grant funds are spent and which agencies and projects receive them. The Women’s Fund has awarded more than $33,000 in grants in its short history. Participation in The Women’s Fund by new donors is always welcome. For more information, click here.

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Looking for a Speaker for Your Organization?

We’re always happy to share information about the Community Foundation. If you’d like someone from the Foundation to speak to your group or service organization, let us know! You can reach us by telephone, mail or by clicking here.

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