Steve Alley has submitted his resignation as president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, according to an announcement made by Paul Lindsey, chair of the foundations board of trustees.

Alley, who is leaving to pursue other interests according to the announcement, will stay on until April 30 or until a successor is identified.

When he came to the foundation, the organizations assets totaled $61 million.

Douglas Jansson, the president and chief executive officer of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation , has announced that he will retire next year.

Jansson said he will retire Sept. 30, 2010. He has led the Milwaukee community foundation for 16 years, a tenure that has seen the foundation's assets grow from $114 million to $574 million as of December 2007.

During the past decade of his tenure, Foundation investments have outperformed two key benchmarks, the S&P 500 and the Morningstar Balanced Mutual Index Fund, the foundation said.

John Foschi is the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation’s newest financial officer.

Foschi brings more than 25 years of finance experience to the Community Foundation, most recently as comptroller for the Fond du Lac Reservation. Prior to that, Foschi worked as the city administrator and finance director for Proctor and comptroller for Grandma’s corporate offices.

There was so much interest in last month’s post of 90 Foundations That Tweet that I wanted to expand on it by sharing a list of funder networks on Twitter.

What is a Funder Network?

According to the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers:

Funder networks consist of grantmakers organized around a specific funding issue, geographic location, or identity-based community that come together to build their skills, capacity, and impact.

The Arkansas Community Foundation (ARCF) is happy to partner with DonorsChoose.org to implement the 2009 SIMS (Science Initiative for Middle Schools) program in Arkansas!

Funding for this mini-grant program is made possible by an endowed gift to ARCF from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation.

In June, Katie Alford replaced Nancy Jones, a legend in her own right and “the only president the Community Foundation of Abilene ever had.”

“Katie is a young star in our community who sees the big picture,” Paul Cannon, chairman of the foundation’s board of trustees, said when Alford was selected as president and chief executive officer.

No one was happier with Alford’s selection than Jones, who hired Alford in 2005 as finance director for the foundation. In March, Jones was named chief executive officer of the Community Foundation of North Texas, headquartered in Fort Worth.

Alford, 32, was chosen from among 27 applicants to replace Jones, who said she expects Alford to lead the foundation to new heights.

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.

Organizers of the African American Empowerment Fund of Delaware (AAEFD), a new philanthropic initiative of the Delaware Community Foundation, will officially launch the fund in Sussex County at the Sussex County Association of Realtors (SCAOR), 23407 Park Ave., in Georgetown, from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

The effort mirrors the successful Fund For Women, a Delaware Community Foundation fund created to improve the lives of women and girls in Delaware.

Affordable housing first in four major funding initiatives

MARIN COUNTY - After close to two years of strategic planning, the Marin Community Foundation commenced July 1 a completely redesigned funding model, shifting for the first time a majority of discretionary dollars to original projects jointly created by the organization in four primary focus areas.

The plan will begin this month with the purchase of about 20 foreclosed properties that will eventually be transformed into green affordable housing.

“We started this strategic planning with the goal of finding the best way to have the greatest impact. After input from many, many people in the community, we decided that meant better focusing our resources, which did call for some tough decisions,” said foundation President Thomas Peters.

“Projects were created through a more interactive process, through work with past partners but focused on new projects influenced by community input and decided upon by the foundation’s trustees.”

About 60 percent of the funds $25 million in annual discretionary spending will go to new projects in the four specific areas including affordable housing, carbon footprint reduction, lowering poverty and increasing educational achievement.

The remaining budget will be distributed through community grants focused on efforts in arts education, engaging the public in the arts, increasing access to open space for low-income residents, integrating immigrants into the community, improving health, services for seniors, protecting Marins ecosystem and fostering social justice.

The organization also distributes another $25 million to $30 million annually from about 300 families that goes directly to groups and projects of the donors choosing.

The first project for this years discretionary funding will transform bank-owned properties into affordable housing with about 80 percent less energy use.

NorthBay Family Homes President and Chief Executive Officer Clark Blasdell, who is helping to coordinate the effort with the foundation, said his organization has been tracking about 200 homes for possible purchase during the last year and will begin the transactions this month.

Each home will then go through a four- to six-week evaluation, where those needing the most work will be transferred to Habitat for Humanity families, who are required to spend at least 500 hours working on the home. Families between two and five members with wages of about 60 to 80 percent of the areas median income will be eligible for the housing.

Other organizations involved in the housing piece include the Greenbelt Alliance, the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California, the Marin Housing Authority and County Supervisor Steve Kinsey.

The foreclosed home project is part of several planned under the $10-million, five-year affordable housing initiative.

The Wichita Community Foundation is moving from its space at the Garvey Center, but it’s not leaving downtown.

The foundation, which promotes charitable giving, is moving to 2,600 square feet on the first floor of the Epic Center.

“The big issue with us is it’s more visibility,” says Rob Allison, president and CEO.

And it’s visibility in a building with a lot of professionals — particularly lawyers and accountants whose clients are the type of people likely to support the foundation.