Parkersburg Area Foundation

Winner of the 2009 Effies Community Leadership Award for effectively leading its community in implementing initiatives that address a pressing community opportunity or problem

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The Parkersburg Area Community Foundation (PACF) and the Regional Affiliates of Doddridge, Jackson, Mason and Ritchie Counties and the Little Kanawha Area (DCCF, JCCF, MCCF, RCCF, and LKACF)

Contact information: Judy Sjostedt, Executive Director, JudyS@pacfwv.com

Phone: 304.428.4438 Fax: 304.428.1200 URL www.pacfwv.com

In many ways, our service region in West Virginia and Ohio is a forgotten part of the country. Few national funders venture here as our scale is small, rural and dispersed. Yet our communities, especially our WV service region counties, represent a disproportionately high share of the nation's most economically challenged places. 80% of our WV service region* is identified by the Appalachian Regional Commission as "economically distressed" or "at-risk" (per capita income rates are well below national averages and poverty and unemployment rates significantly higher, *2008).

PACF and the Affiliates represent 6 distinct organizations through which “local people help local people.” We work with citizens in eleven rural counties to build community capacity to meet essential needs by growing permanent community-level grant making funds in places where few exist. Addressing inequality here means combating persistent poverty. And to do this, means empowering local people and providing greater public control over the community’s destiny, while concurrently fostering stronger access to education and employment opportunities. The “Regional Affiliates” program began as a strategy to better meet unmet regional needs by engaging local philanthropists in each community. For nearly ten years we have worked to transform our organizational character into one that more fully embraces the broad spectrum of those we serve. In 1999, we had a 21-member central governance Board (70% male, 30% female) and though we served 11 counties, 20 members came from the same county. In 2009, this same Board has 25 members, with 5 representing the five affiliate counties and a 50-50 male/female ratio. Our Board has more diversity on multiple levels now. The affiliate advisory boards bring 65 new rural community leaders into positions of stewardship over community assets. In 1999, approx. 30 volunteers served PACF; in 2009 approx. 200 volunteers are engaged in committees across the region, which bring new voices to the table. In terms of solutions to increase resources, in 1999, we had approx. $7.6M in 130 funds, with no dedicated charitable funds for affiliates. In 2009 we have $20M in 300 funds, with 70 serving the five affiliate communities. These funds did not exist in 1999. No Legacy Society gifts (planned gifts) in 1999 for affiliate communities; 10 exist today.

To grow civic capacity and philanthropy we have used multiple strategies; here’s a few:

An annual training program (three, 3-hr classes in Board Governance and Leadership, Asset Development, and Grantmaking) and recognition program for our volunteers’ completion of this training; a matrix shared by the Minneapolis Foundation to foster diversity on our governance board; The Philanthropy Index as a tool to gather communities in building the affiliates; private funder support from the Benedum Foundation to embed staff in rural affiliates (though this grant is now over in 2009); Dr. Judy Millesen of Ohio University working with us to collect baseline data for evaluation; several successful projects, employing entrepreneurial strategies to engage the whole community, such as JCCF’s Charity Challenge has grown its community grants fund from $0 to $140,000 and benefits 21 nonprofits through collective fundraising annually; MCCF’s Community Support project building a field of interest fund for youth needs with a process using multiple nonprofits and area businesses; and our PACF Annual Meeting this year involving facilitated table conversations which generated 5 pages of conversation documenting what communities wanted to change; now we need to work on resources to effect those changes!