Gunderson: America needs more community foundations
August 02, 2011 | 05:47 PM | Filed in: Rural America
KANSAS CITY — Community foundations across rural America do everything to improve the rural quality of life, from helping to bring in high-speed Internet service to buying new school playground equipment, but more of these foundations need to be formed, Steve Gunderson, president of the Council on Foundations and a former Wisconsin Republican congressman said here last week.
Community foundations, Gunderson explained, are tax-exempt public charities that focus their activities on a specific geographic area. They are distinct from private foundations such as the Ford, Rockefeller and Bill & Melinda Gates foundations in that they accept money from many people and focus on one geographic area. People who give their money to community foundations don’t have to worry about managing the money or deciding what programs to benefit because the foundations have staff to do those jobs, he said, but there are also opportunities for them to influence what causes they benefit.
About 86 percent of the population of the United States is covered by community foundations, Gunderson said here last Wednesday in a speech at the Council on Foundations’ third biennial conference on rural philanthropy. But 14 percent of the country is not covered, and much of that territory is in rural America.
Community foundations vary dramatically in assets and the communities they serve, but they offer people of all income levels an opportunity to be philanthropists. One of the most important innovations in recent years has been “donor-advised funds,” under which people can give as little as $5,000 and suggest how their money should be spent. There are now 152,000 donor-advised funds around the country, Gunderson said. Although the foundation retains ultimate decision-making power, most foundations make an attempt to follow a donor’s wishes.
At the conference, Gunderson said that when he came to the council six years ago he recognized that for the role of philanthropy to grow in the country it had to grow in rural America. Gunderson organized the first conference on rural philanthropy in Montana in 2007, after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., had called on foundations to become more active in rural America. That conference was followed by another at President Bill Clinton’s library in Little Rock, Ark., in 2009, and the conference this year.
Gunderson told the more than 100 foundation officials from around the country that they have done a lot of good research and planning but have not made as much progress as he hoped on implementing a plan to reduce poverty in rural America.
In the future, Gunderson said, foundations working in rural America will have to address the growing diversity of rural America and the fact that rural America will not be the same in the future. While agriculture will always be important, Gunderson noted, most jobs will be created in other fields.
“The rural economy of the past will not create rural America's future,” he said.
The Council on Foundations, based in Arlington, Va., provides services and support to foundations of all types and has a special division focusing on community foundations.
Council on Foundations
Community foundations, Gunderson explained, are tax-exempt public charities that focus their activities on a specific geographic area. They are distinct from private foundations such as the Ford, Rockefeller and Bill & Melinda Gates foundations in that they accept money from many people and focus on one geographic area. People who give their money to community foundations don’t have to worry about managing the money or deciding what programs to benefit because the foundations have staff to do those jobs, he said, but there are also opportunities for them to influence what causes they benefit.
About 86 percent of the population of the United States is covered by community foundations, Gunderson said here last Wednesday in a speech at the Council on Foundations’ third biennial conference on rural philanthropy. But 14 percent of the country is not covered, and much of that territory is in rural America.
Community foundations vary dramatically in assets and the communities they serve, but they offer people of all income levels an opportunity to be philanthropists. One of the most important innovations in recent years has been “donor-advised funds,” under which people can give as little as $5,000 and suggest how their money should be spent. There are now 152,000 donor-advised funds around the country, Gunderson said. Although the foundation retains ultimate decision-making power, most foundations make an attempt to follow a donor’s wishes.
At the conference, Gunderson said that when he came to the council six years ago he recognized that for the role of philanthropy to grow in the country it had to grow in rural America. Gunderson organized the first conference on rural philanthropy in Montana in 2007, after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., had called on foundations to become more active in rural America. That conference was followed by another at President Bill Clinton’s library in Little Rock, Ark., in 2009, and the conference this year.
Gunderson told the more than 100 foundation officials from around the country that they have done a lot of good research and planning but have not made as much progress as he hoped on implementing a plan to reduce poverty in rural America.
In the future, Gunderson said, foundations working in rural America will have to address the growing diversity of rural America and the fact that rural America will not be the same in the future. While agriculture will always be important, Gunderson noted, most jobs will be created in other fields.
“The rural economy of the past will not create rural America's future,” he said.
The Council on Foundations, based in Arlington, Va., provides services and support to foundations of all types and has a special division focusing on community foundations.
Council on Foundations
