The Fremont Area Community Foundation sponsored open access to The Foundation Review article, so their story and road map are available for other funders and partners.
The Fremont Area Community Foundation sponsored open access to The Foundation Review article, so their story and road map are available for other funders and partners. Content excerpted and adapted from the article. Read the full article here.
The Fremont Area Community Foundation (FACF) is featured in The Foundation Review, a peer-reviewed journal of philanthropy produced by the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University, for its journey from charitable giving to the implementation of a strategic impact framework.
In the article, Carla Roberts, president and CEO, shares how the community foundation launched a community investment strategy in 2011, focused on education, poverty and economic development that created the framework to guide their grantmaking to increase their impact in rural Newaygo County.
Highlights include:
The community foundation launched a strategic framework in 2011, informed by community surveys, focus groups and internal planning.
To implement their strategic framework, FACF funded graduate fellows to examine historical approaches to its grantmaking and its impact. The fellows also researched best practices across the country.
In 2011, FACF became the first community foundation to commit to Lumina Foundation’s Goal 2025, which is focused on moving the needle on postsecondary attainment to 60 percent by the year 2025.
FACF focused on three goals: Increase the proportion of local residents who hold college degrees, credentials, or certificates to 60 percent; reduce the local poverty rate to fall at or below the national average; maintain the local unemployment rate at or below the national average.
FACF created committees for the three goals and shared their grantmaking frameworks with grantees. The three frameworks identified the outcome targets and suggested the types of projects that would be most competitive for grants.
Roberts writes in part, “The groundwork for most of our activities was laid with a relatively small financial investment from the foundation. We believe our investments of time and thought leadership have been the most important elements to date. We have changed not only how we are funding, but what we are funding, in order to achieve the greatest impact for our community investments; and we have provided tools to monitor impact. We have also invested significantly to promote collective action among grantees around the critical issues in our service area. For the most part, the foundation’s goals have become a shared community agenda.”
The article states, “As the foundation moves ahead with its second five-year strategic plan, it is being guided through a continued process of change by research and learning, community feedback, results from key grantee surveys, and evidence of where the work has contributed to positive outcomes for the population it serves.”
Want more?
Read the full article from The Foundation Review.
Learn more about FACF.
Connect with CMF’s Rural Philanthropy Affinity Group.
