The Community Foundation recently convened a group of stakeholders to share feedback on the Foundation’s grantmaking programs. The two meetings, hosted on the SC4 campus, are a part of the Foundation’s efforts to create a new Strategic Planning roadmap for the next three years of 2025 – 2027.

“Every three years, we reach out to stakeholders throughout our region and seek their input,” said Patti Manley, the Foundation’s Board Chair. “Our broad grantmaking programs need to balance the goals and objectives of our donors with the opportunities and needs of our community,” she added.

The two workshops were attended by about 20 people, including donors to the Foundation, grant committee members, and nonprofit staff and leaders from across the region. The sessions were facilitated by consultant Mike Goorhouse, who has a long history of community foundation leadership.  

“I’m in a place where I see both sides of the Foundation’s work,” said Josh Chapman, CEO of the YMCA of the Blue Water Area and Foundation board member. “And the grantmaking work may be the most complicated and nuanced as we explore growing basic human needs, but also balance our focus on creating a prosperous and thriving region.”

The Foundation will use the feedback from these sessions to help educate and inform their donors, donor advised funds and multiple grantmaking committees. Since the Foundation is a very decentralized organization, there is no one single board or committee that makes funding decisions. 

Over the next two or three months the Foundation will continue to explore other key components of their new Strategic Plan including an increased focus on our region’s smaller and rural communities, along with anchor projects along the coastal communities of the Bridge to Bay Trail Corridor. 

“We plan to finalize and release our new plan in the first quarter of 2025,” said Manley, who will serve her second and final year as Board Chair of the Community Foundation. “Philanthropy is alive and doing very well in our region.” She cited the recent opening of the new Children’s Exhibit at the Knowlton Museum along with more than $3 million awarded by the Community Foundation so far in 2024.