News

Athens Area Community Foundation Fully Launched

• The Community Foundation is ready to serve the diverse philanthropic interests and needs of the community.
  
  

  We have raised over $200,000 to support
  operating expenses with the Board giving $120,000.

• Our mission is to bring people together who care deeply about Athens, Georgia and surrounding areas and who seek to improve the quality of life and economic well-being of all people in our community through gifts and involvement. We are committed to connecting donors with what they care about through charitable giving and by serving as a well-informed and effective grant-maker working in partnership with the community and encouraging the entire community to support charitable giving for the benefit of all.
  
  

  The Foundation fulfills its mission by:

  • Supporting implementation of the recommendations of the Partners for a Prosperous Athens;
  • Encouraging private giving for the public good;
  • Providing a flexible and cost effective vehicle for donors with varied charitable interests and abilities to give;
  • Helping to enhance the capacity of service delivery providers in the greater Athens area;
  • Serving as a catalyst, convener and partner in reaching and shaping effective responses to problems and opportunities of all our communities.
  
  
• Our mission is to bring people together who care deeply about Athens, Georgia and surrounding areas and who seek to improve the quality of life and economic well-being of all people in our community through gifts and involvement. We are committed to connecting donors with what they care about through charitable giving and by serving as a well-informed and effective grant-maker working in partnership with the community and encouraging the entire community to support charitable giving for the benefit of all.
  
  

  The Foundation fulfills its mission by:

  • Supporting implementation of the recommendations of the Partners for a Prosperous Athens;
  • Encouraging private giving for the public good;
  • Providing a flexible and cost effective vehicle for donors with varied charitable interests and abilities to give;
  • Helping to enhance the capacity of service delivery providers in the greater Athens area;
  • Serving as a catalyst, convener and partner in reaching and shaping effective responses to problems and opportunities of all our communities.
  
  
  
• The Community Foundations is building an endowment, a permanent corpus of funds, which it will manage/invest to generate resources for Athens and the surrounding counties in perpetuity.
• This endowment will be made up of multiple funds with varying degrees of focus/restriction based on the charitable wishes of their donors.
• The Community Foundation has chosen to rename itself the Athens Area Community Foundation to mark this developmental landmark and in preparation for filing its 501c3 application with the IRS.
• This Fall, the Community Foundation will begin helping donors create funds to turn their charitable goals into permanent legacies.
  
  

  The first Donor Advised Fund is being established by Benson, Inc.

• In the Spring of 2009, the Community Foundation will begin investing in our community through strategic grant-making.
• We want the community to see its community foundation as a vehicle for as many missions as there are needs.
• The Community Foundation is a resource for all donors and nonprofits, not just those who participated in the Partners for a Prosperous Athens process.
• A community foundation’s strength lies in remaining flexible to meet the arising needs of a community. While building economic prosperity for everyone is core to our mission, the community foundation will be a vehicle for donors and nonprofits supporting causes from the Arts to Zoology.
• The Community Foundation is taking a regional approach to improving quality of life -- it will serve donors and nonprofits in Athens-Clarke, Oconee, Jackson, Madison, Barrow and Oglethorpe.
• A Community Foundation, with its endowed component Funds, ensures that 10 generations from now, the residents of Athens and surrounding counties will have philanthropic resources to meet community needs. Endowments value each generation equally by stewarding community assets “for good, forever.”