The Community Foundation provides leadership to identify and address the most promising opportunities and critical challenges facing our communities. As both a funder and convener, The Community Foundation’s initiatives inspire neighbors – donors, community organizations, government, and the private sector – to work together to improve the economic conditions and social well-being of our entire community.
With over 100 pilots currently operating around the country, guaranteed income programs have proven to be one of the most promising approaches to lift people out of poverty and provide greater economic stability for families. The Greater Washington Community Foundation is an early adopter and investor in several guaranteed income pilots throughout our region.
Researchers have found that children’s savings accounts seeded with a modest amount of funding could help close the racial wealth gap in a community by as much as 28 percent. The Community Foundation is embarking on a pilot program to establish and seed funds for two kindergarten classes in our priority neighborhoods that can be redeemed at graduation to pay for higher education, purchase a home, start a business, or take other steps toward securing their future.
Reimagine, formerly known as the Greater Washington Workforce Development Collaborative, is a coalition of funders committed to co-creating solutions alongside communities and people to advance systemic economic justice rooted in reimagining, redistributing, and rebalancing work, opportunity, and sustainability.
Reimagine is working toward a vision for an equitable and just Greater Washington region where each person has the agency to define what a productive and creative life means and the opportunity to lead that life which allows for material comfort, sustainability and growth.
We believe that all DC residents deserve a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home. The Partnership to End Homelessness, led with the DC Interagency Council on Homelessness, is the first-of-its-kind initiative in DC to bring together the public and private sectors to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and nonrecurring. The initiative includes an impact investment focused on increasing the supply of deeply affordable housing and a grantmaking fund to help more people obtain and maintain stable housing, and ultimately end homelessness in DC.
The Greater Washington Community Foundation and Public Welfare Foundation have established a partnership that sets a cross-sector table focused on community safety in the District of Columbia.
Driven by a Leadership Council of strategic partners in business, philanthropy, nonprofits and local government, this initiative aims to support and accelerate local efforts to reduce violence through community-centered approaches.
Leadership Council Members Include: Peace for DC, National Association for the Advancement of Returning Citizens (NAARC), Greater Washington Board of Trade, Federal City Council, The Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE) and the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia (OAG).
In times of crisis, the Greater Washington Community Foundation serves as a community convener, advocate, and philanthropic first responder to ensure our region is prepared and equipped to effectively respond to challenges. We mobilize community partners and resources to protect and preserve the essential work of this region’s nonprofit sector and help ensure critical services can continue without disruption. Our goal is to safeguard and sustain efforts aligned with our mission to build an equitable, just, and thriving region.
Given recent federal actions and their destabilizing effect on the nonprofit sector and our region, our current focus is on strengthening the capacity and resilience of this region’s nonprofit sector to address urgent and emerging needs through deep collaboration, coordination, and targeted resources. This effort will help ensure the region’s critical nonprofit organizations can continue to meet urgent needs, advocate effectively, and sustain impact for the communities we serve.
Voices of the Community: DC, Maryland, Virginia (VoicesDMV), is a community listening and engagement initiative conducted every three years to help understand the diverse experiences of the people who live and work in the Greater Washington region. VoicesDMV uplifts community voice through a community-wide survey and community conversations to explore the issues impacting the region. The result is a rich collection of data that has informed more strategic and effective investments by The Community Foundation and our partners.
