HOW WE HELP

  • Effective Grant-Making

    The most visible and well-known function of a community foundation is to make financial grants to local charities. Local volunteers evaluate funding applications and make decisions based on the needs of the community and funds available. Grants are made to a wide variety of sectors, from health to heritage, education to environment, and many others.

  • Endowment Building and Donor Services

    The perpetual nature of a community foundation, combined with its local focus, makes it an appealing place for donors who want to strengthen their community. A community foundation has the skills and tools to work with donors to help them achieve their charitable wishes.

  • Community Leadership

    As an autonomous, volunteer-driven, and locally focused organization, a community foundation can work with charities, local government and citizens to identify community needs and encourage collaboration and cooperation amongst stakeholders.

  • When an organization has a project that requires funding in the area of arts and culture, heritage, sports and recreation, youth and seniors, education and health or the environment they must make a formal grant request to the foundation. A Grants Committee reviews these applications and makes funding recommendations to the board. Care is taken to ensure that grants are awarded equitably between all of the areas of interest as mentioned.

  • The Brockville and Area Community Foundation is incorporated in the Province of Ontario and has official charitable status as issued by Canada Revenue Agency. The Foundation is composed of a Board of Directors and standing committees including Fund Development, Grant Making, Nominating, and Finance. The Foundation follows the governance model laid out by Community Foundations of Canada.

    Currently all committee work and many of the administrative functions are carried out by Board members and volunteers who have shown exceptional community leadership. Erik Wang is the part-time Executive Director who assists in the many functions required to ensure the smooth operation of the Foundation.

  • A community foundation is a simple but ingenious concept...a registered charity that pools large and small gifts and places them in a community endowment fund, the income from which is distributed in support of charitable causes.

    In 1914 Frederic H. Goff, a Cleveland banker and lawyer, started the Cleveland Foundation. Mr. Goff developed the idea of a community foundation as a way to ensure that the purposes of perpetual endowments could be varied over time to meet changing needs. The community foundation would be vested with a variance power to use funds for other purposes, as close as possible to a donor's original intent, should that purpose become obsolete. Thus the foundation could avoid costly court proceedings, continue to carry out the donors' wishes and benefit the community in perpetuity.

    These foundations would not themselves provide direct charitable services but would, instead, award grants from the charitable trust funds to charities in the community that could best carry out donors' interests and meet community needs.Grant making decisions would be made by a volunteer community-based Board of Governors, who would be appointed because they were representative of the general public and for their knowledge of community needs and the charities that address those needs.

    Today, although the role of community foundations has been greatly expanded, the central feature remains attracting and managing permanent endowments. These funds, for a wide variety of philanthropic causes, are entrusted to the care of a group of living trustees, vested with the authority to vary the purposes in order to ensure the legacy remains relevant.

    There are now over 650 community foundations in the U.S. holding combined assets in the billions. The largest as of 2009, is the Tulsa Community foundation, with assets totally $4 billion. Canadians, always willing to borrow a good idea, didn't take long to adopt this one. The Winnipeg Foundation was started in 1921 and now has assets of $455 million. The largest Canadian community foundation, in fact the largest foundation of any kind in Canada, is the Vancouver Foundation, started in 1943 and now holding assets of $750 million as of 2010.

    Community Foundations are one of the fastest growing and most dynamic networks dedicated to building and strengthening communities in Canada. There are now 191 Canadian community foundations, with combined assets of more than 4.8 billion as of 2016. During 2015, they made over $215 million in grants to support local and national causes across the country.

HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION

The Brockville Community Foundation was established in 1974 by a group of community leaders: John Broome, Thomas Dailey, T.A. Lindsay, Dr. J.W. McDougall, E.R. O’Kelly, A.C. Runciman, G. Egerton Brown. The purpose of the Foundation at that time was to "provide relief to poverty, assistance to the destitute and aged, or financial aid to educational and cultural projects in the community.” Over the course of the last four decades many projects including the restoration of Sally Grant, the restoration of the Fulford Fountain, the sundial at Blockhouse Island, and Project Encore – The Brockville Arts Centre, were all funded through the Foundation.

From 1974 to the 2000, the Foundation made small grants from the investment income that was earned on the fund. In 2001, the Board of Directors decided to join the rapidly growing Canadian community foundation movement, and re-established the organization as the Brockville Community Foundation. Recognizing the area surrounding Brockville that we were supporting it was decided to change our name to the Brockville and Area Community Foundation.

The newly reborn Foundation began to grow its endowed funds, and for a number of years had a stream of revenue from a charity lottery license to increase the amount of money it was able to award in grants. Although we do not have our lottery licence anymore, our endowments and flow-through donations have increased. Since 2000, the Brockville Community Foundation has granted funds each year to local charities. To date, the Foundation has contributed over $1.1 million to support local initiatives.

Although the foundation has been existence for a number of years, it has been since 2003 that the Board of Directors decided to solidify and grow what began so simply years ago. Until that time most initiatives were of a sporadic and specific nature, and donations were of a ‘flow through nature’. Since 2003 our mandate has been to build endowment funds to provide perpetual income for years to come.

A first step was joining the Community Foundations of Canada. The model of a Community Foundation served to secure funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation in 2003, enabling us to establish an office and hire a part time Executive Director. Over the years the Brockville and Area Community Foundation has utilized the services of Executive Directors Andy Mills and Joyce Ferguson. Currently the part time Executive Director is Erik Wang.

Since that time we have had many successes and accomplishments. We currently have 23 endowment funds under the BACF umbrella (for a listing click here). Our total endowment has increased from under $20,000 in 2003 to $1.3 million today. (2022 financial statements click here)

Through agreement, the Foundation’s endowed funds were managed by the Community Foundation of Ottawa (OCF). In 2023 return on investments were 9 percent net of investment fees charged by Ottawa. Beginning in 2024, the Brockville and Area Community Foundation has moved our investments over to CIBC Wood Gundy. Returns to date have been positive, so we are hopeful for continued performance this year.