GRAYS HARBOR COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

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WHAT IS A COMMUNITY FOUNDATION?

We provide two answers to this question. 

The first takes a wide perspective, capturing the heart of our mission:  to help meet the long-term needs of the people who live, work, serve and play in Grays Harbor County. 

The second offers a more technical definition of a community foundation, its legal definition, salient characteristics, and core mission.

We hope both answers help readers discover the uniqueness and enormous potential of the community foundation model.

THE BIG PICTURE

The idea behind our community foundation is simple:  no one knows what the needs of our community will be in 20, 50 or 100 years, yet we do know that tomorrow's local leaders will inevitably face a world with new challenges.  If our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren will be able to solve local problems with local solutions, they will need the local resources to do so.

A community foundation aims to build a charitable endowment just for this purpose. 

First, a community foundation receives funding for its core mission from a broad range of individuals, families and businesses.  The only thing all our donors have in common is a love for Grays Harbor and her communities.

Second, we stress long-term giving.  A community foundation best serves those donors who are thinking about making a major gift to local charities.  Unlike the United Way, which also supports a broad range of local charities, we do not mount annual fundraising campaigns.  Instead, we seek the sort of gifts which we can reinvest in our community over many years.  Accordingly, a core of our work is the investing of funds held for the long-term benefit of local communities.

Third, because our focus is long-term, we encourage donors always to think of the broad needs of our community.  While a community foundation can be used to support very specific causes, its core mission is to serve a community as a whole.  That's why we call our main unrestricted fund The Fund for Grays Harbor. 

A Shifting Tide

There are many stories about the past wealth of Grays Harbor.  As trees and lumber have left our community, so has much of its wealth.  Sadly, many of the older families whose histories were shaped by the riches of Grays Harbor now no longer consider Grays Harbor their home. 

We hope to reverse this tide. 

By advocating for the broad and long-term support of local charities, we want to prepare for Grays Harbor's future by saving for it now. 

TECHNICALLY SPEAKING

  • A community foundation is a tax exempt, non-profit, publicly supported, philanthropic institution with the long term goal of building permanent, named funds for the broad-based charitable benefit of the residents in a given area. 

  • Community foundations provide a variety of services to donors who wish to establish endowed funds without incurring the administrative and legal costs of starting independent foundations.

  • A community foundation is controlled and governed by a board of directors who broadly represent the population of the area served.  All decisions are based on local needs and interests. 

  • A community foundation's mission is not limited to just one or two areas of need. 

    • We support local communities in all their dimensions -- from arts, culture, recreation and education to social services, economic development, and the quality of local health care.  The breadth of our support depends on the interests and generosity of our donors.

  • A community foundation is designed to serve one area and one area only, forever. 

    • Because we are a permanently local institution, we can assure donors that even if the purpose of their gift becomes impossible to fulfill, their gift will never become irrelevant, and their money will never leave the community.

  • This flexibility to remain relevant and effective in a community, even after decades of unpredictable change, is made possible by what is called "variance power."  This power, unique to community foundations, allows our board to redirect the use of funds originally set up for purposes which are no longer possible to fulfill. 

    Variance power, while rarely exercised, is simple:  it involves no tangled court proceedings, no attorneys' fees, and no need to worry that such redirection will change the spirit of the donor's original gift.

    • For example, a fund first established in 1920 to fight polio might today be redirected to find a cure for muscular dystrophy. 

    • Similarly, a fund established today to benefit PAWS might be redirected to another local animal shelter if PAWS in 40 years were to go out of business. 

  • A community foundation's core mission is to develop a grant making program with enough flexibility to address the broad spectrum of community needs, even as those needs change over time.

The Grays Harbor Community Foundation is one of more than 650 independent, local community foundations operating today across the United States.  While we were established in 1994, the oldest community foundations were established in 1914 and 1915.  Most community foundations, including Grays Harbor's, belong to the Council on Foundations, our national professional association. 

Read on to learn more about the history of community foundations.

 

Follow a link to learn more:

 

[ History of Community Foundations ]

Grays Harbor Community Foundation is a tax-exempt public charity dedicated to serving the broad needs of Grays Harbor County in Washington State.  We are a member of the Council on Foundations; we have committed ourselves to the National Standards for U.S. community foundations; we are audited annually; and we consider ourselves accountable to the public upon whom we depend for support.

We thank Darrell Westmoreland, Kevin Hong, Ellen Pickell, and the Polson Museum for providing the photographs used in this website.  We'd like to showcase the work of more local photographers and artists on this website and in our publications.  Please contact us if you'd like to help. 

Mail:        707 J Street  |  P.O. Box 615  |  Hoquiam, WA  98550
Email:      info@gh-cf.org
Phone:     360.532.1600
Fax:         360.532.8111
Last modified: 01/11/06