CFSA Newsletter Fall 2017

Impact Report Fall 2017

The Transformative Power of Partnerships: A Message from Jan Lesher and Phil Amos In 2015, the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona’s (CFSA) Board of Trustees determined its facility at 2250 E Broadway no longer enabled it to fulfill its mission.

That’s when the idea for the Community Foundation Campus (CF Campus) was born—as a way of accommodating our growth and creating a campus for nonprofits, putting our mission into bricks and mortar. The CF Campus located at 5049 E Broadway Blvd will house CFSA and its programs and initiatives, and serve as a home for 20 to 30 additional nonprofits. It will become a shared space for community advancement.

We know that due to our unique position in the community, we have the responsibility to lead. We have been leading throughout our history and now is the time to build on that legacy, put our values on the table and honor all of those who have been a part of CFSA since the beginning. The CF Campus will respect their work by taking our mission to the next level.

The CF Campus will impact hundreds of charities and touch the lives of thousands while helping donors build and leave a legacy to their community. We are excited about our bright future and the impact this new campus will provide nonprofits and our region: a future filled with partnerships that will continue to assist our donors in transforming our community, and help nonprofits forge and strengthen their services, working together with goals in an exciting new shared space.

The CF Campus embodies CFSA’s values. This space will help continue to deliver the highest, most sustainable levels of service. It will help spark new ideas for addressing what matters most to the people we serve. It will fuel partnerships rooted in mutual interest, trust and respect, enriched by diversity and focused on positive and lasting impact in our communities. It will make our founders and all those that have built CFSA proud.

We invite you to be part of the journey towards a brighter, better tomorrow for all in Southern Arizona.

IMPORTANT

DATES December 2017

Accepting Nominations for the Buddy Amos and Lynn Anderson Awards

January 2, 2018 CFSA Scholarship Grant Round Opens

January 2, 2018

Accepting Nominations for the Igor Gorin Award

January 22, 2018

CFSA’s Professional Advisory Committee Signature Event

January 24, 2018

Buffalo Exchange Award Reception

January 29, 2018

Community Interactive: The Arts

February 2018

LGBT&S Alliance Fund Grant Round Opens

February 2, 2018

Jan Lesher Chair, CFSA Board of Trustees

Phil Amos Chair, CF Campus Campaign Council

Demolition Day at the Community Foundation Campus.

L to R: Phil Amos, Chair Community Foundation Campus Campaign Council; Clint Mabie, President & CEO, CFSA; and Jan Lesher, Chair, CFSA Board of Trustees

cfsaz.org

Biannual PAAW meeting

March 7, 2018

CFSA Annual Event For additional information, please contact Ana Tello at atello@cfsaz.org

(520) 770-0800

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Clint’s Corner For the past two years, The meaning of life is to I have been sharing find your gift. The purpose updates on a new phase of life is to give it away. of community building after the adoption of – William Shakespeare CFSA’s 2020 strategic plan and our Board of Trustees agreement that we needed a new space to fulfill our mission and goals.

Today, we are excited to announce that the demolition phase of the buildings that will house our new Community Foundation Campus has started. The construction phase is scheduled to begin in February 2018 and the grand opening is planned for the fall of 2018.

Currently there is no central place in our community where nonprofits can go to receive ongoing technical assistance training and increase and expand their capacity. We are thrilled to share that we are working to establish a partnership with an entity in town that will help the Campus become the hub for technical assistance training to nonprofits in our community. It will be the place where nonprofits learn about best practice strategies to improve services to their clients and the community.

To make this vision a reality we have a campaign goal of $4M. We are grateful that through generous donors like you, we have received over $1.5M in gifts and commitments. Why are donors giving to the campaign? Simple – because with one donation they can affect the entire nonprofit sector; literally tens of thousands of people. Just one gift can help create a needed place where nonprofits can learn and collaborate together.

Inspiring Donors NOW & FOREVER

Year-to-date by the Numbers Gifts: $4.1M* Grants: $2.7M* New Legacy Gifts: $5.3M* Endowment 1 Year: p 13.20%** Endowment 5 Year: 7.6%** * Consolidated-unaudited as of FY18 Q1 ** For detailed reports on all investment pools, please visit cfsaz.org/about/financials/

If you would like to learn more about how you can make the campus a reality for our community, please contact Jennifer Jones at 520-382-9204 or jjones@cfsaz.org, or me at 520-209-2864 or cmabie@cfsaz.org.

Our best wishes to you and your family this Holiday Season, and thank you for your ongoing support of our work.

Sincerely,

J. Clinton Mabie President and CEO Community Foundation for Southern Arizona

Fall 2017

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Get to Know our Trustees:

Another Successful Year for the Capacity Building Training Program and Nonprofit Open House

1. What is one sentence you would use to describe CFSA?

On October 26, a large number of nonprofits across Southern Arizona met to share and expand their knowledge about financial sustainability and attend the Fifth Annual Nonprofit Open House that provided them with the opportunity to connect, engage and develop relations with grantmakers from the region.

Tony Dabdoub

Through our stewardship and leadership, CFSA becomes the convening organization that unites Southern Arizona donors and nonprofits alike, fulfill their dreams and visions, needs and causes.

2. Why do you think it is important for our community to have a Campus for nonprofits?

We share those same core values with the Southern Arizona philanthropic community; now we’ll have a place to share; a place to promote synergy, collaboration, and efficiency. Working and caring for a community is all about relationships. Now we’ll have a convening place to nurture those relationships.

3. What are you thankful/grateful for?

Living, enjoying and prospering in my new home: Tucson, Arizona.

4. Share a personal fact no one would ever guess about you.

I love to write short fiction. Most of my short stories are written in Spanish and take place in the Mexico of my younger years.

5. What is a recent book that you have enjoyed? Why? “Why Walls Won’t Work” by Michael Dear. It explores the rich history of the border region, is very well documented, and right to the point. A great read.

The Capacity Building Training Program was presented in partnership with The David and Lura Lovell Foundation and the UA Agnese Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice.

“By bringing the corporate and foundation funders into the event, we created the opportunity for everyone to be in one room to exchange ideas on how we can all work together for the worthy causes we care about and support,” said Clint Mabie, CFSA President/CEO. This year’s Training Program and Open House proved to be the best one to date. We look forward to our next one in Fall 2018.

Stay tuned!

Inspiring Donors NOW & FOREVER

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The Evolution of CFSA’s Grantmaking

By Sandra Nathan, Senior Vice President, Philanthropic Services & Community Investments at CFSA Since 1980, the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona (CFSA) has partnered with our donors and distributed more than $160 million to regional nonprofits and educational institutions.

In the past, CFSA provided both donor directed and unrestricted grants, typically in small amounts, to nonprofits through a competitive grant application process. During this same period, we were successful in leveraging national funding to support community issues, including a grant from the Ford Foundation to establish a fund for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender individuals (now the LGBT&S Alliance Fund). We also received funding for the HIV/AIDS Consortium and the Border Philanthropy Partnership to support our work at and across the border.

Between 2010 and 2016, CFSA explored new and emerging trends in grantmaking. We changed our grant strategy by making larger grants to fewer organizations, as well as other changes to emphasize impact. These strategies entailed providing several capacity building grants in specific areas of interest that required deep collaboration between nonprofit grantees. This eventually evolved to an emphasis on collective impact – a systems change model. During this era, CFSA received national recognition for its collective impact successes through the Ajo Regional Food Partnership, recognized by the Atlantic Magazine and New York Times for creating a local, community-based food system.

Over the past year, CFSA has continued with its traditional approach to grantmaking in key areas while at the same time creating a new framework that is forward-looking. After a series of community listening sessions, we are in the process of creating programmatic initiatives that are aligned with our three areas of focus: education, health and well-being, and economic opportunity. We recognize that many vulnerable people in our region face pressing and complex challenges in their lives, and we will be effectively leveraging our grant resources to work in collaboration with other stakeholders to more deeply impact these challenges. All of this will comprise our areas of proactive grantmaking for 2018.

It is an exciting time to be at CFSA. As a learning organization, we constantly seek to implement best practices and bring new approaches to partnering with our donors, nonprofits and other key stakeholders. We invite you to join us as we address community needs through our grantmaking and provide leadership on issues impacting the region.

Please visit cfsaz.org for the complete article.

CFSA Awards $300,000 in General Operating Support through New Grantmaking Program – CORE Grants Recognizing a need to support nonprofits with flexible funding, the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona (CFSA) awarded $300,000 in grants for general operating support funds to ten high-impact nonprofits in Southern Arizona.

CORE grantees were carefully and rigorously evaluated by committees of both staff and community representatives who made sure each application reflected the CORE values of community, organizational sustainability, results and effective programs.

The grants were awarded to the following organizations: Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tucson, Community Home Repair Projects of Arizona, Higher Ground a Resource Center, Interfaith Community Services, Job Path, Inc., Literacy Connects, Make Way for Books, Mobile Meals of Southern Arizona, Southern Arizona Research, Science and Engineering Foundation and YWCA Southern Arizona CFSA believes that for the nonprofit community to improve the lives of people and places in Southern Arizona, they need core unrestricted working capital to leverage their impact. We look forward to lasting partnerships with our donors and the community that will enable us to make this grant program a priority in future years.

For more information regarding CORE grants or information on partnering, please contact Kelly Huber, Director, Strategic Grant and Initiatives at CFSA.