Communities of Coastal Georgia

Although the Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation was not formally incorporated until 2005, the concept of a local foundation to foster philanthropy in the region had been discussed for a decade or more. Participants in these early discussions included community leaders Ben Slade, Bill Jones, III, and Dennie McCrary, nonprofit representatives like Family Connection director Saundra Hathaway and Martin Lehfeldt of the Southeastern Council of Foundations, and foundation heads such as Phyllis Bowen of the Sapelo Foundation and Jeanne Manning of the Azalea Foundation.

It wasn’t until another community foundation director pointedly suggested in the spring of 2003 that "You must have a community foundation in your community and you must start working on it now" that locals decided the time had come to form a steering committee to guide and inform the birth process. That first steering committee met in September 2003, comprised of Ben Slade, Dennie McCrary, Phyllis Bowen, Saundra Hathaway, Tom Sublett, Ben Hartman, Jeanne and Jim Manning, Jack Dinos, Frank DeLoach, and Jeff Barker.

The committee determined that the foundation should initially serve Glynn County, McIntosh County to the north and Camden County to the south. Jacksonville’s community foundation offered to take the fledgling community foundation under its wing as an affiliate and to provide structure, staff, and investment vehicles. Early in 2004, a memo of understanding was signed with The Community Foundation in Jacksonville establishing affiliate status.  By that fall, a 14 member board had been named and office space was offered at the United Way in downtown Brunswick.

Early 2005 saw an initial letter go out to four hundred prospects inviting them to become founders with a $50,000 pledge to be fulfilled within five years to grow the foundation’s unrestricted endowment. That spring also saw the hiring of the foundation’s first executive director, Jennifer Curry, formal incorporation status from the IRS, and by-laws created. The first special event for prospects was held and a second fundraising campaign launched. By July of 2005, $1.5 million had been committed or pledged to the Founders’ Fund. Within six months, that figure had grown to $3 million and the first donor advised fund had been set up.  Spring 2006, the foundation received its nonprofit status. Capacity Building for Nonprofits was named as the first discretionary grant making focus.

There was a slight pause in momentum when the executive director resigned in April and the foundation was without administrative staff until mid-summer when Lee Owen accepted the position.

The foundation, now a recognized nonprofit, changed its affiliate status with Jacksonville in the fall of 2006 to become an independent community foundation but continued to contract with Jacksonville for financial services.  2006 closed with the foundation making grants from its discretionary fund and its donor advised funds amounting to over $1/2 million.  By January 2007, staff had grown to two with the addition of Diane Doster as donor services/grants officer and a website was completed and launched.

As of December 2007, with 70 Founders, the Foundation held over $3.7 million in assets, had made over three quarters of a million dollars in grants, and held over $1.5 million in donor advised funds.  We continue to grow, helping donors fulfill their philanthropic goals and assisting local nonprofits in building up their organizations for better service to our community.

The year 2008 was dominated by working toward and achieving National Certification by the Council on Foundations.  The Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation was found to be in compliance with all standards for U.S. community foundations, attesting to the efficiency, transparency, and effectiveness of the young foundation.  We awarded competitive grants to ten agencies in the tri-county area in August.  By the end of 2008, Communities of Coastal Georgia Foundation had 70 founders, and 17 funds - 14 named, donor advised funds, one endowed designated fund, the community endowment fund, and one "acorn" fund.  Despite economic turmoil in the fall and early winter of 2008-2009 and the resulting stock market losses that affected the community foundation's investment portfolio, total assets, including founders' gifts pledged but not yet completely fulfilled, was just under $4 million.  We granted out $587,000 from donor advised funds and our own grant making to 48 charities, over 80% of whom served our three counties.

2009 presented many challenges but was marked by the launching of our first initiative in the focus area of Literacy/Education when the Coastal Georgia Certified Literate Community Program was granted "participating community" status by the state board.  The Coastal GA CLCP (as it is known) focuses on the promotion of Adult Education and has as its goal assisting 9,148 adults throughout the tri-county area in obtaining their GED over the next ten years, thus achieving "Certified Literate Community" status.  As we ended the year our assets stood at just under $4 million held in 18 funds.  We made 95 grants for a total of $503,542 for 2009 and bringing the total amount granted since our inception to $1.85 million.