September 26, 2023

Managing assets for the greater good is what community foundations do.  We pursue our mission, set our goals, and assess our performance with this frame of reference.

Yet when we also leverage our community foundation's social, political, and financial capital to convince local policymakers, local institutions, and the public at large to manage government in ways that advance our goals and mission, our bottom line results are significantly stronger.

I first heard this concept in a board presentation from Clotilde Dedecker, former CEO and President of the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo.  It made sense to the board, too, because it enabled them to understand the value of policy work in bottom line terms.

At last week’s excellent Northeast Pennsylvania Nonprofit Leadership conference, I was honored to share the stage with Cara Matteliano, Senior Director for Policy and Strategic Partnerships at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo and a longtime leader of that strategic policy work. 

During the plenary panel, Cara and I explored the keys to successful community foundation policy leadership - and partnership - to address a community's core needs.  What’s simple and powerful. What’s complicated and requires patience. How broad the impacts can be. How to approach the work. The importance of engaging the entire community foundation team in the work, and more....

The conference audience included nonprofits, private foundations, community foundations, community leaders, staff, board members, and volunteers were engaged, which was exciting. The results provide the Scranton Area Community Foundation - and their co-sponsors from private foundations and neighboring rural community foundations - a foothold for collaborate this fall on shared policy priorities for the pivotal year ahead.

Join us on Friday’s webinar to learn how your community foundation can engage, educate, and collaborate with your nonprofit community to advance reforms on shared policy priorities in the region you serve.  You can register here for the webinar, this Friday, September 29, at Noon ET/11CT/10MT/9PT. 

In our hour together, the Scranton Area Community Foundation will talk about their conference, their focus on this work, and plans to follow. Leslie Barnes, Senior Counsel with the Alliance for Justice, will explain in simple terms our unlimited ability to advocate and how to easily manage whatever “lobbying” we choose to do. And our colleagues from Broward County will talk about how they have engaged – and plan to newly engage - with their nonprofit community to protect and advance policies at the heart of their mission in 2024 and beyond.