September 2026
WHERE GIVING MEETS COMMUNITY
Insights on local generosity, nonprofit work, and the needs shaping our region.
By Katie Simpson, Community Giving Foundation
When we think about charitable giving, it’s natural to think about what a gift can accomplish today. A donation helps a nonprofit offer a vital service. A scholarship helps a student pursue an education. A grant helps address an emergency need in our community.
But what if your generosity could continue making a difference long after the original gift was made? That is the power of endowment.
An endowed fund is designed with the future in mind. Rather than spending the entire gift today, the fund is invested for long-term growth, allowing a portion to be distributed for charitable purposes each year while the fund itself continues to grow, creating opportunities for future impact.
For community foundations, this long-term approach is central to our work. Community foundations are stewards of charitable resources—funds created by individuals, families, and businesses and then invested to address community needs today, tomorrow, and forever.
At Community Giving Foundation, that means helping donors create charitable funds that reflect what matters most to them while building permanent resources for the communities we serve. Today, the Foundation manages more than 400 funds—80% permanent endowments—and distributes more than $4 million annually through grants and scholarships.
The possibilities are as varied as the people behind them.
An endowed fund might focus on a particular charitable interest area, support designated nonprofits year after year, provide scholarships for future students, or offer completely flexible resources to respond to changing community needs. Planned gifts can also be used to establish or add to an endowed fund, creating a charitable legacy that extends beyond a donor’s lifetime.
That long-term flexibility is especially meaningful because we can’t always know what our communities will need tomorrow.
Think about what needs you saw in the community twenty years ago. As our communities evolve and adapt, new challenges and opportunities emerge. And we know that the needs facing our region today will look different five, ten, fifty years from now. An endowed fund gives future generations something invaluable—the ability to respond.
That is one of the unique strengths of community foundations. We aren’t only focused on solving today’s problems. We are also building charitable resources—the community’s endowment—that can help our region navigate what comes next.
And perhaps that is what makes an endowed gift such a meaningful expression of legacy.
Legacy isn’t simply about leaving something behind. It’s about carrying something forward. The values that shaped your giving. The people and places that mattered to you. The vision you have for a stronger community. An endowed fund can help ensure those priorities continue to make a difference—even when you are no longer here to make the gift yourself—while creating a symbol of your family’s legacy through every grant awarded in your family or fund’s name.
So, as you think about your charitable giving, consider looking beyond the immediate impact. What could your giving make possible tomorrow? And what might it make possible for generations you will never meet?
At Community Giving Foundation, we believe the most powerful philanthropy can do both—meet the needs of our communities today while building a strong foundation for tomorrow. Because when generosity is thoughtfully invested in the future, its impact doesn’t have to end with us. It can become part of our community’s story—for good, forever.