This week is Community Foundation week. This week is a prime opportunity to highlight the critical role of community philanthropy in supporting a thriving local community. Josh Gibb, President and CEO of the Galesburg Community Foundation is always looking to explain what the foundation is and what they do. Part of what the GCF does is build permanent endowments and the money raised helps generates grants to the community. “We know that permanently endowed resources provide stability, provide perpetual resource to the organizations that are really working to make a difference,” Gibb said. “People are talking to us about all sorts of things. They’re talking about gifts that they’re making during their lifetime, gifts that they’re making at the end of their life…and we’re excited whenever someone just sees the opportunity that they can make for the benefit of their community.”
As part of Community Foundation Week this week, the Galesburg Community Foundation announced the local nonprofits receiving grant awards through the annual grant cycle. The grant cycle combines funds from donors who hold charitable funds at the community foundation along with money from the community foundation’s Impact Fund to fully fund nonprofit proposals. Community Foundation Director of Grants & Programs Tiffany Springer said that “this is the first time in….our history that we are able to fully fund 75% of nonprofit proposals.” Local nonprofits receiving full funding include: Discovery Depot, City of Galesburg Parks and Rec, FISH of Galesburg, Galesburg Public Library, KCCDD, Knox County and Warren County YMCA, The Orpheum Theatre, and the ROWVA and Monmouth-Roseville School Foundations among many others.
The Galesburg Community Foundation will be at Innkeeper’s in Galesburg on Tuesday, November 13th from 8:00 am until 10:00 am. Go up to the counter and say you’re having coffee with the community foundation – and the coffee is free. It’s a chance for people and the foundation to connect and communicate and see what makes the community great. Gibb adds that if we can “create these opportunities to talk about what is great” and what the community foundation is doing “as a community or we can be doing is definitely worth the cost of a cup of coffee.”
Also in an effort to promote the foundation and to align with Community Foundation Week, the GCF is asking community members to celebrate what is happening in our communities. “Something that we thought might be fun this year is during Community Foundation Week, (is to) post a 15-second video on our Facebook page with #yourGCF, that just talks about what makes our community great, or just what it is that you’re doing to make our community great.”
For more information, or to see the full list of grant recipients, visit the Galesburg Community Foundation website or Facebook page.
