What Role Will Community

Foundations Play?

Kevin K. Murphy
President,
Berks County Community
Foundation

Berks County Community Foundation Revised 2014

Change is here for Communities

Back in the good old days, whenever those were, the structure of community leadership
organizations was pretty simple. The Chamber of Commerce represented business. The
United Way raised money to fund critical needs. Community Foundations served as
community savings accounts and local government leaders ran their municipalities.
Most communities had a CEO roundtable. The CEO roundtable was where the big boys
got together. In a big city, that might be staffed (like the Allegheny Conference in
Pittsburgh), in small towns it might be a meeting at the local lunch counter every
morning.
One way or another, the leaders of all of these groups typically found their way to a
weekly Kiwanis or Rotary meeting to hear updates on what each other was doing.
It was pretty simple. It was more or less universally true. And it ended a long time ago.
The structure of community leadership is changing, and the role of community
foundations is changing with it. The process is ongoing, and no one knows where it will
end. 1
The Brookings Institution has documented the decline of CEO roundtables around the
country. Brookings analysis focuses more on the formal structures like the Erie
Conference, Greater Philadelphia First and the Berks Business Executives Forum.
The decline in participation in service clubs like Rotary International has been well
documented by Robert Putnam, author of the seminal work on community engagement
Bowling Alone. Putnam documents, for instance, a more than 50% decline in PTA
membership from 1960-1997.
Chambers of Commerce around the country are going through an interesting if as yet not
fully documented set of changes. 2 All of our local chambers of commerce (except for
1

It is important to note that this paper deals in broad generalities about communities.
While some of the changes noted here may not have occurred in our community (United
Way giving has increased modestly here, for instance), they may, or they may not.
Others will be recognized as having happened here. Still other changes are unique to
Berks County.
2
While significant decision making powers have shifted from the federal government to
states and local communitys in the past two decades, remarkably little literature or
research has been generated to document the impact of these changes on communities, or
the changes going on in communities themselves due to changing economic and
demographic circumstances.

the relatively new Latino Chamber of Commerce) have reported declining membership
numbers. National chamber consultants fret openly about declining relevance and
sustainability.
United Ways are, in general, shifting to a more donor directed model where donors can
choose from among a limited number of impact areas and no longer attempting to
address a sweepingly broad range of community issues.
So some organizations are disappearing, others are transforming, others are in decline,
while some are in ascendancy. Whether these changes are good or bad isnt important.
They form the environment that community foundations operate in and must be taken
into account when thinking about the future of our operations.

The Changing Role of Community Foundations

Many of the traditional backbone organizations of the community have chosen to, or been
forced to, become more narrow and deep in the scope of their interests and activities.
Many community foundations, in contrast, have chosen (or been forced) to shift to a
broader, more expansive role, in the community. Moving away from the traditional
grantmaker model to a leadership model that is not yet fully defined or understood.
Boris Tsyrulnikov, the founder and Executive Director of The Togliatti (Russia)
Community Foundation suggests that community foundations are becoming a fourth
sector, juxtaposed against government, the non profit sector and the corporate sector:
Operating on a corporate business model, but without a profit motive; living in the non
profit space, but not delivering services, performing functions that look governmental
(the allocation of funds, community planning) while not being elected.
Tsurlinkovs view is built on the idea that the greatest power of community foundations
is not their ability to grant funds, but their ability to capitalize on this unique position.
Hes among the most forward thinking and articulate community foundation leaders on
the subject, however, as most of us are trying to both figure out this new role and
articulate it in a way that makes sense.
Steve Gunderson, a former congressman and former President of the Council on
Foundations put it this way:
Today, community foundations have become the new mayors of our community. In
ways never anticipated, community foundations today serve as the convener, the vision,
and often the glue that brings diverse elements of the community together in ways that
defines the future.

For Berks County Community Foundation, our reaction to the changes in the community
has lead us to define our role as providing basically three functions:
1. Visionary
The broader view that we have taken; including our practice of engaging in national and
international networks focused on community issues leaves us uniquely prepared to help
the community find and articulate a vision for its future. The Community Foundation is
careful not to interpret this role as creating a vision for the community as much as
capturing the communitys vision for itself through research.
There is, however, an element in this process of bringing new ideas that help the
community realize and give voice to its vision. Richard Florida didnt impose a new
idea on the community as much as he helped the community see that what it had been
thinking had validity or perhaps help an idea find its voice.
Our Initiative for a Competitive Greater Reading is perhaps the best example of The
Community Foundation helping the community find a picture of its future, but there are
others, such as the farmland preservation work and the educational attainment study. As
a general rule, any time we do a research project, or convene a group, its part of fleshing
out a vision for a new Berks County.
And were not alone among community foundations in undertaking this work. The
Baton Rouge Community Foundation led Plan Baton Rouge, a comprehensive city
revitalization plan. The Pittsburgh Foundation, along with the Heinz Endowments, led
that city through a thorough reanalysis of its public education system and a plan to
guarantee college educations to its graduates. The San Francisco Foundation helped its
region form and implement a plan to guarantee universal access to health care in the city.
2. Supporter
The Community Foundation serves as a supporter and nudger on community issues. It
conforms its grantmaking and community leadership to the broader vision of the
community, whether expressed through plans weve developed (think of our recent
Corridor Grant to support ICGR) or through efforts to support legitimate community
plans like the Berks Vision 2020 comprehensive plan, including our advocacy for
projects that comply with the plan.
This supporter role is probably closest to the traditional view of community
foundations as grant makers. One notable change at Berks County Community
Foundation and other foundations is the movement to move toward strategic grantmaking
that supports established visions, rather than simply responding to worthy requests. It
represents a significant shift from an old model that is best described as give a little to
everybody and now looks more like strategic grantmaking to support a vision.

3. Score keeper
If we define a vision of the future, and provide funding to support progress toward
achieving that vision, it only makes sense that we would also provide a way to evaluate
the communitys progress toward that vision. Like the Community Foundations of
Canada and a handful of American Foundations (most notably Boston), Berks County
Community Foundation is seeking to undertake a community indicators project that gives
the community feedback on its progress toward its vision.
Were doing this in a format that has the potential for other community foundations in
Pennsylvania to replicate it, a process we would likely start through our Pennsylvania
Outreach Project.
Becoming the communitys scorekeeper is a natural development for organizations
known for their impartiality, independence and breadth.

Concluding Thoughts
The changing role of community foundations is inevitably the result of changes in their
environments. Berks County Community Foundation is not alone. Virtually all
community foundations are reassessing their roles
Those of us who lead community foundations should enter into this era with several
thoughts in mind. We need to recognize that no single answer will apply across the
global network of community foundations. Each community presents a unique mix of
history, community culture, community organizations and needs. The fact that there is
no one-size-fits-all solution is precisely why community foundations are being called to
new roles.
Its also incumbent on community foundations to embrace with humility the knowledge
that constant vigilance of their environment is necessary. Some of the historically
important community leadership organizations descended into irrelevance by refusing to
adapt to changing circumstances. We should not assume that the demands of today will
be the demands of tomorrow.
Nor should we assert some kind of structural superiority over other organizations.
Approaching the task of community leadership with the proper humility means knowing
when to follow as well as when to lead.
The new frontiers of community foundation leadership requires us to embrace new roles,
take greater risks and recognize that we are called to these roles by communities that
need us.