The Parsec Prize for the second quarter 2009 was recently awarded to Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Western North Carolina. The organization has been serving Western North Carolina since 1982 and provides services to eight counties.

Parsec also made donations to the Boys Home of the South, Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, Asheville Community Theater, Caring for Children, and Special Olympics of North Carolina.

As mentioned in a previous newsletter article, Parsec matches a portion of employee donations.

Goodwill Industries of Central Michigan's Heartland was the recipient of a $4999 grant from the Jackson Community Foundation. These funds were combined with a grant from the Battle Creek based Nonprofit Alliance and used to purchase a back-up register and generate a comprehensive retail reporting system.

GICMH has retail stores in the following locations: Battle Creek, Marshall, Coldwater, Jackson, Mason, Lansing, DeWitt, Charlotte, Hastings, and additional donation centers in Okemos and Eaton Rapids, Chelsea, and at the Northwest Refuse site in Jackson. Revenues from these retail operations are invested back into the organization to help people gain good jobs and become independent, tax-paying members of their communities.

Another round of emergency grants for food and shelter programs in Santa Clara County was announced today by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

The foundation will award about $500,000 in grants to 23 nonprofit organizations serving residents in need. In early May, the foundation awarded $1 million in emergency grants for food and shelter programs.

"As the county's unemployment has risen, more people than ever before are turning to food pantries and temporary shelters," Rebecca Salner, a media relations officer from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, said of the emergency grants.

The Salisbury Community Foundation is currently accepting applications from nonprofit organizations for its 2009 grants program.

The Salisbury Community Foundation is dedicated to inspiring philanthropy in the Salisbury/Rowan County area.

The Salisbury Community Foundation assists individuals and families address their philanthropic needs through charitable giving services; helps local nonprofits secure their future through endowments and establishment of charitable giving programs; and addresses a broad range of changing local needs through a grant-making program.

As an affiliate of Charlotte-based Foundation for the Carolinas, the Salisbury Community Foundation is dedicated to increasing charitable giving and strengthening the community.

You're invited to attend the annual meeting of the Erie Community Foundation on Thursday, August 6, 2009, at 4:00 p.m., at the Bayfront Convention Center, 1 Sassafras Pier, Erie PA. Come learn how we really are "Better Together" and hear an exciting announcement about how ECF is working with others to improve our region. A reception will follow the presentation.

The Willow Springs Community Foundation is pleased to announce that they have met their goal of raising $26,000 as part of the Harry Cooper Supply Company Campaign for the Ozarks. This money will matched dollar-for-dollar through the Cooper Campaign. Representatives from the Community Foundation of the Ozarks will be on hand to present a check for the matching funds on Friday, July 17, 2009. The local match was made possible thanks to the generosity of Steve and Ginny Norman.

The Harry Cooper Supply Company Campaign for the Ozarks is a dollar for dollar challenge grant in partnership with the Community Foundation of the Ozarks that is part of an overall regional effort to enhance community grantmaking endowments, establish administrative/operations endowments, and promote appropriate and best practices by community foundation board of directors.

The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, in partnership with the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan, announced today the list of 75 arts and culture nonprofit organizations in southeast Michigan participating in the online giving program Community Foundation Challenge Arts & Culture on Aug. 18.

The program, which was announced on July 16, is an online giving challenge designed to generate $3 million in sorely needed operating funds for arts and cultural organizations in southeast Michigan.

Some leaders seem born to it; others might grow into it. Still others have leadership capability that needs cultivating and encouraging. That last big bunch became the focus of the many community-organized leadership-development courses that blossomed nationwide during the past three or four decades.

More than 300 achievers and potential achievers have been through Leadership Santa Fe's six-weekend offerings in a 30-year tenure interrupted by, well, less-than-successful leadership - but resumed in recent years.

The group has just taken a couple of seven-league strides: It's now a program of the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce. The chamber's counterparts launched leadership courses in many American cities, so our community's business group can draw on plenty of experience. At the same time, the Santa Fe Community Foundation has agreed to provide leadership training for those interested in serving on boards of our area's many nonprofit organizations.

What is now the Central Kansas Community Foundation used to have a golf tournament and a duck race to help raise money for its Greater Newton Kids FUNd.

'Two duck races was enough,' John Torline said.

When the foundation had a chance to be the title sponsor of the Sand Creek Station Pro-Am, part of the festivities of the Nationwide Tour’s Preferred Health Systems Wichita Open, the group jumped at the chance.

The Kids FUNd started in 2005. The CKCF has raised more than $51,000 in that time. The Kids FUNd was started by Barrick Wilson, marketing director of Newton Medical Center and a former foundation administrator.

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks is now accepting proposals from our Agency Partners for the annual targeted Endowment Building Grant Program. This year, grants awarded through this program must be used for specific plans to promote planned giving and legacy societies on behalf of the applying organization. CFO will award 10 grants of $1,500 each through this program.