Project Spotlight: Jefferson County Community Foundation

A case study in the creation of a new philanthropic organization.

A group of Jefferson County, Wash., residents came together in 2004 interested in filling a vital community need, but none of them had much experience in philanthropy. However, they knew enough about community foundations to know it was a good idea for their community, and they knew that KLMayer had the experience to guide them toward the goal of establishing one.

Kristina accepted their offer to take charge of the project, and within two years, the Jefferson County Community Foundation had nonprofit status, a working board, educational outreach programs, a plan for developing long-term fundraising, and investment strategies.

First steps to incorporation

Kristina began by facilitating the founding group's meetings, developing agendas and making sure the fledgling organization was on track with the legal steps to becoming a public charity. She presented them with research on other community foundations, and facilitated the writing of a comprehensive business plan. Concept mapping was a tool used to facilitate decision making and capacity building. Kristina also wrote some basic fact sheets to be used as marketing tools.

One of the most important elements of any foundation is creation of a successful board. Kristina began this process by educating the founding group on what makes good board members and how to recruit them. After raising the group's consciousness about board development, she facilitated the careful selection of what has become a successful working board.

She also shepherded the organization through the minutiae of nonprofit incorporation: writing of bylaws, tax exemption work, and developing a set of foundation policies. In Kristina's ongoing work with board development, she will insure that the board knows how to plan strategically for the future and how to fundraise effectively.

Early successes

Community foundations generate their funding through an endowment, or a large fund of donations that are wisely invested but never spent. Only the interest from the endowment goes to fund programs. Kristina facilitated the development of a volunteer investment team to create the foundation's investment strategy, headed by a local investment manager she recruited. The next step was helping the board create decision-making policies and practices to guide their grant-giving. The first grant from the community endowment was awarded in May 2007, to a Waldorf-inspired farm school teaching low-income residents of Jefferson County to grow and prepare their own organic food.

After cultivating the Jefferson County Community Foundation from its early seeds to fruition, Kristina is serving the foundation in an interim capacity by performing many of the duties of an executive director until the time is right to hire an official director. She interfaces with the foundation's legal team in Seattle, organizes outreach events, and coaches board members as they approach key funders.

Responding to express needs from the local nonprofit community, the board took Kristina's suggestion to form the Jefferson County Nonprofit Alliance as the "educational arm" of the community foundation. This broadens the foundation's impact by offering capacity-building workshops and forums for the very organizations it may someday fund.

Powerful potential

The Jefferson County Community Foundation can be a catalyst to action, by studying areas of unmet need and using the power of its endorsement to meet community goals. It can also be a neutral community convener to tackle community challenges, by helping people actualize their desire to create a healthy, viable community over the long-term. In other words, it has a lot of potential.

"This is the second nonprofit I've pretty much created from scratch," Kristina says (the first being the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession). "The most important – and most interesting – part of my work is the philanthropic part. It's really inspiring to help create a foundation for charitable purposes that will have a significant and long-lasting effect on the community." Website