Report to the Community

Birmingham Skyline

Report to the Community 2010-2011

The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham and the Birmingham region we serve have faced challenging and rewarding times during the past 12 months. Thanks to gifts and bequests from charitable individuals, families and businesses throughout our history, we have been able to accomplish much toward our mission to drive positive change in our community.

Our most recent fiscal year ended on December 31, 2010, with more gifts and bequests ($17.5 million), more grants ($17.1 million) and more assets ($154 million) than in 2009.  During the same time period, Advised Fund donors at the Community Foundation provided $736,000 in partnership with Community Funds through the Giving Together Program, compared to $560,000 in 2009.

Already in 2011, Advised Fund donors have surpassed the Giving Together total for fiscal year 2009, a total of $591,855 leveraged with Community Foundation grants and initiatives to achieve measurable results in key areas.  Our generous Advised Fund donors also provided $313,286 for first-line responders and long-term recovery in the wake of April 2011 tornadoes that devastated Alabama.

More than numbers
These financial figures tell only a partial story of how your Community Foundation is working in partnership to improve the life of our region, especially Jefferson, Shelby, Blount, St. Clair and Walker counties.

The year 2010 set the stage for two achievements in the first half of 2011:

You can read more about the Results Framework, created after much hard work by a committee of board, staff and community representatives as a tightly focused approach to addressing community issues and building on opportunities. In the first cycle of grants for 2011, we were able to award $974,000 total in 18 grants toward two Results: People can lead healthy lives & Children are successful along the education pipeline. Stay tuned for the second round of grants in December 2011, aiming at two more Results: Communities are sustainable, livable and vibrant & Individuals and families are economically secure.

Prize2theFuture proved that Birmingham is a place of great promise, with almost 3,000 contestants registering for the chance to offer their ideas about how to transform a city-owned parking lot into a cool, vibrant place. Out of 1,115 entries (teams and individuals), judges chose One Birmingham Place: An Eight-Part Celebration of Community and Social Reengagement as the winner on May 5, 2011. Find out more about Prize2theFuture and the visionary donors to Community Catalyst Funds supporting this new source of philanthropic venture capital.

Your Community Foundation responded to devastating tornadoes that hit Alabama in April 2011. Through benefit concerts and more traditional donations by generous people across the country and here at home, we had more than $3 million available for long-term tornado recovery efforts that we expect to continue for months and perhaps years to come.

In 2010-11, we also saw results from our investments in:

  • Birmingham Education Foundation (BEF), created out of our Yes We Can! Birmingham initiative in 2009 and currently housed in the Community Foundation offices. BEF launched the Campaign for Ed in August 2011 to support educational initiatives that benefit students and promote system change in Birmingham City Schools.
  • Health Action Partnership, which leveraged local dollars to fight tobacco use and obesity in Jefferson County and generated an additional $13.5 million for these efforts through two national initiatives, Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) and Healthy Kids Healthy Communities.

All this is possible for the community of greater Birmingham thanks to:

  • The generous individuals, families and businesses who leverage their giving through the Community Foundation
  • Nonprofit partnerships with organizations working hand-in-hand with the Community Foundation to improve the life of our region, and
  • Collaborations with people from all walks of life who come together through the Community Foundation to address community issues, build on opportunities and achieve measurable results.

We invite you to review the names currently associated with Community and Field of Interest  grantmaking funds of the Community Foundation or with Advised Funds or already invested in the future through a legacy gift and recognized as Community Builders.  Join us and be inspired.

William E. Smith Jr., Board Chair
Kate Nielsen, President

Published September 2011