Under the leadership of President and CEO Kelvin Adams, the St. Louis Community Foundation has announced it will concentrate a portion of its discretionary grantmaking and resources in two priority areas — Economic Mobility and Youth Connections. The move is part of the organization’s new five-year strategic plan entitled “A Foundation for the Future.”
The Economic Mobility priority area is defined as organizations and initiatives that address housing, financial empowerment, and job creation issues. The Youth Connections priority area encompasses early childhood development, educational innovation, and scholarship efforts.
“We intend to be an active and visible part of the problem-solving process in St. Louis by renewing our emphasis on ‘community’ in all of our activities,” said Adams.
Adams emphasized the priority areas will not affect community-based initiatives or the current portfolio of donor-centric advisory services the Foundation provides to charitable St. Louisans.
“Our donors will continue to support the organizations important to them and work with our staff to prepare giving plans that meet their needs. We will invite them to join us and lend their support to these initiatives, but there is not a requirement they do so,” Adams said.
“Our region is one of the nation’s most generous, yet our philanthropic resources and energies are often pulled in multiple directions. Our intention is to drive meaningful progress in these focus areas by building on our donors’ existing generosity and interests and leveraging the Foundation’s community reach and discretionary dollars.”
The Community Foundation will build the organizational framework for the initiative by forging collaborative partnerships with other funders and expanding funding streams. Formal grantmaking in support of regional nonprofits and initiatives is anticipated to begin in late 2024 or early 2025.
William Schmidt, Foundation board chair and Cultivation Capital managing partner, said the collaborative giving approach “will enable the Foundation to leverage its immense experience and tremendous local knowledge to foster truly meaningful improvements for our community.”
