According to the Maryland Community Foundation website, Community foundation giving has more than doubled since 1995. Today, there are more than 700 community foundations in the country. These foundations hold approximately $44.8 billion in assets throughout the country. In 2006 (the latest figures available), community foundations gave more than $3.6 billion to a wide variety of nonprofit activities.
Maryland’s community foundations held more than $330 million in assets, and distributed more than $42 million in grants in 2006.”
Defining Community Foundations are difficult. They are not, in and of themselves, charitable entities. However, funds managed by Community Foundations are responsible for millions in grant money distribution each year. Distributed funds are only managed by Community Foundations.
In an effort to better understand the process, The Bay Net talked with Gretchen Heinze, Executive Director of the Community Foundation of Charles County to learn more.
“We are the eleventh Community Foundation in Maryland,” said Heinze. “The process started when the Maryland Community Foundation Initiative, through a private grant, decided to do a study to see if the Community Foundation idea would work in Southern Maryland.”
That study was done in 2004 and was originally to be exploring the idea of creating a Southern Maryland Community Foundation. The committee performing the study talked with area business leaders to determine if the effort would work.
“Frank Chaney of Chaney Enterprises, Inc. was involved in the study and it sparked an interest in him. He contacted the Waldorf Jaycees and provided seed money to start the Community Foundation of Charles County,” said Heinze. It was decided that a Community Foundation was warranted, but that the experiment would start in Charles County first to see how it would actually work.
That still does not define what a Community Foundation is. Heinze tried to explain using some examples: “If you decide you want to create a charitable or non-profit organization to help make the community better, you would ordinarily have to go through the process of incorporating as a 501(c)3, which takes a long time and involves a lot of paperwork and money.
“You could bring your organization to us and operate under our 501(c)3 status. We handle the administration, the tax reporting, and the investment aspect of what you need to do. All anyone needs to do is have $10,000 and the Community Foundation of Charles County can help them start their charitable organization.”
Heinze went on to say that the Foundation also acts as a watch dog organization to ensure that charitable organizations and non-profits operating under their umbrella are well run and do what they are supposed to do in order to conform to state and national charitable organization rules and regulations.
Community Foundation of Charles County also holds fund-raisers to help support their own operations.
Each year the Foundation holds a few events. The first of these began in June of 2007 with the inaugural Potomac Wildlife Art Show and Auction, the second of which is coming to the Waldorf Jaycees hall on June 20 from 6:30 to 10:30.
At the Art Show and auction, the Foundation has invited musicians from the Stage Works festival held in Indian Head, and world-renowned artists to display and sell their works. “Admission is only $75 and it includes free mus
