Local Mission - Global Vision: Community Foundations in the 21st Century

In Belfast, November 2003, the Non-Grantmaking Roles of Community Foundations working group met to learn about the peacemaking role of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland. Left to right: Svetlana Pouchhkareva, Russia; Richard Mulcaster, Canada; Lew Feldstein, USA; Klaus Rollin, Germany.

I am writing a chapter for a book and am stuck. The book is being published by the Foundation Center. Peter Walkenhorst is coordinating the project. Peter works for the Bertelsmann Foundation which has funded a project that I have been working on for a number of years with a group of community foundation trustees and staff called the Transatlantic Community Foundation Network (TCFN). The thirty or so participants are organized in working groups. The group I was on focused on the non-grant making role of community foundations. The group has met twice a year for three years and produced a body of work (a book, a video, and presentations) on the subject.

The book I am writing the chapter for is entitled "Local Mission - Global Vision: Community Foundations in the 21st Century." My chapter is to appear in a section of the book, "Beyond Money and Grantmaking: Civic Leadership by Community Foundation." In my chapter, "Governance and Community Leadership," I am suggesting that a community foundation board of trustees provides leadership by the way it organizes and conducts itself; that the trustees' governance profile can provide a glimpse into how communities might reclaim themselves as beacons of democracy in order to mobilize for a global call to action.