Community Programs

The Foundation is working to examine their Community Programs to better support community needs. Learn about the process in the story below. In late 2013, please check back here for a launch of our new programs and focus.

TCF examining how to better understand and support community needs
Written by Todd Cohen, Senior Communications Advisor to the Foundation

Triangle Community Foundation plans to expand support of its Community Programs to address the region’s most pressing needs, and has engaged donors, nonprofits and community leaders to help set funding priorities and strategies.

The Foundation invests over $14 million a year to support a broad range of needs in the region, mostly with the advice of donors. And since 2007, it has granted a total of $3 million to over 100 nonprofits through a special community grantmaking program to address urgent needs, mainly in the areas of youth leadership and development, and civic engagement. The Foundation’s Community Programs also provide engagement and learning opportunities for local nonprofits.

Chatham, Durham, Orange and Wake counties, however, are home to nearly 5,700 nonprofits that focus on a much broader range of community needs.

To help address those needs, the Foundation plans to expand its Community Programs in areas that donors have identified as priorities, including the arts, environment, health care, human services, and youth and education.

Over the past year, the Foundation has surveyed local nonprofits, studied funding in other regions and states, published a Community Report focusing on their past work and most recently, assembled a task force of 65 community leaders and experts to recommend initiatives and strategies for expanded funding to support needs in those priority areas.

Led by Easter Maynard, a member of the Foundation’s board of directors and executive director of ChildTrust Foundation, the task force is working to develop a blueprint for the Foundation’s community grantmaking.

The Foundation expects this spring to announce changes to its Community Programs.

“Our Community Programs play an important role in our work,” says Libby Richards, nonprofit and community engagement officer for the Foundation. “They shape our role as a leader in the community, and help us effectively steward the community’s assets entrusted to us. We are excited to engage the community in this re-visioning process and hope to partner with others to leverage our resources in strengthening our region.”