Countywide : Community Group Seeks Public’s Ear

The Orange County Community Foundation has joined more than 400 similar organizations across the nation in observing Community Foundation Week to highlight their work.

Foundation officials said that during the celebration, which started Monday and will end Sunday, they hope to inform the public about how supporting community foundations will help reduce local problems and avoid tragedies like the Los Angeles riots.

“Many communities face the results of poor education and lack of job opportunities,” said Executive Director Judith Swayne.

Social service organizations funded by community foundations can help reduce those problems, she said.

Community foundations manage donations from private individuals and businesses, investing the funds as “endowments” and allocating the money as grants or scholarships to nonprofit organizations as well as selected individuals.

“We’re like an umbrella. We work with donors who want to give to charity, scholarships, or start new projects,” Swayne said.

The Orange County Community Foundation has provided assistance to a variety of projects.

One of the more recent was the Maternal Outreach Maternity System, which provides prenatal health care to about 5,000 indigent women in the county.

Swayne said several private individuals and organizations have agreed to fund the maternal project at the behest of the foundation.

Swayne said the foundation has an average of $130,000 of “unrestricted funds” available to qualifying nonprofit organizations each year.

The projects are selected by the foundation and donors on the basis of how they respond to existing community problems, she said.

Swayne said the approved projects are mostly in the areas of children and youth programs, poverty, ethnic diversity, arts and health care.

Among the programs that have received assistance were a college preparatory youth program that provides motivation and tutoring to minority youth, a chemical dependency program by Florence Crittenton Services and a preschool program for children exposed to drugs.

Swayne said community foundations are the fastest-growing form of philanthropy in the country.

Foundations are also managing projects and giving technical assistance to nonprofit organizations.

“We store wealth for the future charitable needs of the community,” Swayne said.