For the opening session of our 2023 webinar series, Community Foundation Policy Leadership: Expert Perspectives from Inside and Outside, the featured experts were community foundation advocacy leaders – and potential leaders - from across the country.

The topic was, “What is Community Foundation Policy Leadership?” After some preliminary level-setting about the why such leadership is important, we headed straight into the nitty-gritty, exploring the specific opportunities, needs, and challenges community foundations face when pursuing government policies that strengthen their communities.

Questions we discussed included:

- How does one Community Foundation lead for policy improvements across the 18 different counties it serves?

- Is it sometimes better to partner in support of our advocacy colleagues?

- Is it enough to simply foster civic engagement?

- How do we best educate our boards in real time, as we’re both engaging and learning about our policy leadership potential?

- How do we express a specific position on an issue without seeming partisan?

- We have a great plan, yet how do we manage the conflicting desires of our community, board, politicians, and others as we dive into the work?

- Since we’re not actually “the experts” on the issues, what role do we play when advocating?

As you can imagine, every question was not definitively answered in our hour together. Yet what did emerge was a sense of the landscape, as well as our potential, capability, and responsibility for engaging on the policy issues fundamental to our communities’ strength.

The Center for Community Foundation Policy Leadership exists to help our ~750 member community surface, explore, and appreciate the important elements involved in the daily realities of community foundation policy advocacy and leadership. The Center’s goal is to enable and provide community foundations – individually, yet also together - with the supports to unlock their specific policy leadership potential in the ways best suited to their unique local realities.

The Center’s next webinar will focus on “Community Foundation Engagement & Good Government,” on Friday, February 24 at Noon ET (11 CT/10MT/9PT). Our panel will include Christa Franzi from Camoin Associates; Megan Quattlebaum of the Council of State Governments; and Ralph Serpe, President & CEO of the Adams County Community Foundation.

We hope you can join us for the presentations and engaging discussion! To register, please click here.