Letter from CEO & Chair

COMMON GROUND

2017 was a pivotal year for the Albuquerque Community Foundation in many ways, but most importantly, it was our first year tracking results from our recent shift into funding “access to economic opportunities.”

What does that mean? It means we have a common goal through all our funding fields— Arts & Culture, Economic & Workforce Development, Education, Environmental & Historic Preservation, Health and Human Services—of providing access to economic opportunities, and funding long-term systemic change rather than short term solutions, for more residents in our community. We have seen the positive effects of boosting access through community development and workforce enhancement – you’ll read about it throughout this report.

Why this focus? Because we believe those who have access to opportunity lift themselves. We believe by empowering the makers, the doers and the dreamers in our community, we have the potential to grow and create jobs. We take to heart research that shows 80% of job gains come from small business growth and development.* Our community’s strength is in its passionate small businesses and entrepreneurial spirit. Together, through increased opportunities we are stabilizing families and bringing vitality to our historically struggling neighborhoods.

Common goals require common ground. The Foundation actively partners with many nonprofit organizations which agree the path to prosperity is individual success and have created programming to meet the challenge.

Our public/private cross-sector partnerships continue their endeavors of providing better results, faster. Healthy Neighborhoods ABQ and City Alive are two examples, the first focusing on local sourcing and hiring, the latter supporting homegrown job creation and racial equity through living wage job growth. Partnerships produce outcomes greater than the sum of the parts – they are real and they are measurable.

2017 was the Foundation’s biggest year ever for donations from generous individuals and companies who have collectively supported hundreds of nonprofit organizations and thousands of people from communities throughout the Greater Albuquerque Area. 2017 was also our biggest grantmaking year, with nearly $5 million flowing back to the organizations that do the boots-on-the-ground work impacting real people every day.

When one prospers, we all prosper. That’s our common ground – strong, secure and leading us all forward. We sincerely thank you for being a part of what we do.

Steve Keene Randy Royster

Chair, Board of Trustees President & CEO

STEVE KEENE

RANDY ROYSTER