For over 50 years, the Greater Washington Community Foundation has been a champion of thriving communities and a catalyst for community change made possible through local philanthropic engagement, effective community investment, and civic leadership.
Community Leadership and Investment
We mobilize philanthropy for this community, providing a stable funding source to ensure a robust nonprofit sector that is equipped to respond to today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges. Last year, we made grants of more than $90 million to support a diverse range of issues from affordable housing to the arts, education, job training, and social services.
Guiding Strategic Giving
We offer deep community knowledge, expertise and insight to connect caring people with causes that matter. With a bird’s eye view of the region’s nonprofit sector, we understand the greatest needs facing our communities and the organizations that can best serve them. Our job is to help donors find the most rewarding and impactful ways to give back.
Civic Engagement
We tackle the region’s most pressing challenges by bringing together leaders from across philanthropy, business, local government, civic institutions, and other funders. And as a leading convener and advocate for our community, we help inform, influence, invest in and direct key strategies to accelerate meaningful and systemic change.
The Community Foundation’s staff work closely with individuals, families, and businesses to pursue their charitable goals, learn about effective nonprofits, and pool resources for the greater good of our communities.
We appreciate the role that you, as your clients’ professional advisor and trusted confidant, play in assisting with philanthropic interests and charitable goals. As your partner in giving, The Community Foundation offers your clients the simplicity and tax advantages of a public charity combined with the personal recognition, involvement and flexibility of a private foundation.
With deep grantmaking expertise and community knowledge, we assist businesses to develop corporate giving programs, manage funds, engage employees, and administer disaster relief programs or community benefit collaborations to maximize impact for the people and communities they are meant to serve.
The Community Foundation has provided more than $1.5 billion in funding for nonprofits throughout the region. In addition to offering program-specific and general operating grants, we support capacity building, research and advocacy and have incubated several nonprofits to start out on a path for success.
A planned gift to The Community Foundation is a simple yet effective way to create an enduring legacy for the community and causes you love. There are multiple ways to apply personal resources toward the betterment of our community through the Legacy Society.
As a community foundation, we are uniquely positioned to bring people and resources together to tackle critical community issues. Through our work, we prioritize uplifting and centering the lived experiences of community members as we develop solutions to build an equitable and inclusive region.
The Community Foundation provides leadership to identify and address the most promising opportunities and critical challenges facing our communities. As a funder and convener, we leverage collaborations, research and advocacy tools to improve the economic and social well-being of our region.
Our bold 10-year strategic vision is to confront our region’s most catalytic opportunity: the glaring and intolerable racial wealth gap. We believe that by changing the prospects for how Black and Brown people in our community generate, sustain, and share wealth, we will improve the quality of life for everyone who lives, works, and raises a family in our region.
As the region’s largest local funder, we make grants to nonprofit organizations who work daily to solve our community’s most pressing problems. We have invested more than $1.5 billion to support neighborhood revitalization, education, health and human services, arts & culture, workforce and economic development programs, and to reduce income inequality.
Opening a fund at The Community Foundation allows you to give to the causes and issues most important to you. Throughout the year, we provide opportunities for donors like you to connect with community groups and expand your impact. From site visits to grant review committees, there are many ways to leave your mark on our region.
