Professional development events on both sides of the Atlantic

• Valuable opportunities to build  individual and organizational capacity, leadership, and skill sets
• Funded participation in 2010 TCFN Peer Exchanges in regions where TCFN participants live and work.  

Networking, Collaborative, and Partnership Opportunities

• Access to experiences and materials that are shared among TCFN staff, consultants and 40 community foundation leaders
• Participation in small committees like the 2011 Plenary or TCFN Expansion advisory groups that strengthen your role in the field

Practical Tools, Publications & Resources

• Resource Tool Kits, thought papers, and valuable tools like the Community Foundation Balance Wheel that provide up-to-date learning opportunities to your community foundation.  
• The latest philanthropic news, trends, and resources for community foundations around the world through the TCFN Newsletter,  regular correspondence, and the TCFN blog

A Voice in the Global Movement

• A significant role in the dialogue about community foundation practices in a number of countries and regions
• Networking with international philanthropic partners like the Global Fund for Community Foundations and WINGS-CF 

For more information about the value of becoming a TCFN participant,
 view the TCFN Storytelling video clip here.  

See also
1.  Who can participate? View the description of new participants. 
3.  How can I join? Review the Next Steps to Join TCFN.

The Winnipeg Foundation’s CEO, Richard (Rick) Frost, has received an honorary degree – Doctor of Laws (LL. D.) – from the University of Manitoba, in recognition of his long commitment to the local charitable sector, both through his work at the Foundation and his personal giving of time and money to causes close to his heart. The honorary degree is a great distinction and deserves huge congratulations from his TCFN colleagues – to all of whom he has shown generosity in sharing wisdom and experience.

 Rick came to the Foundation from a career in municipal government, latterly as Chief Commissioner of the City of Winnipeg, a post he held to 1997. Since then he has been CEO of the Foundation. As well as serving on a number of non-profit boards at Manitoba level, he is a member of the Premier’s Economic Advisory Council. He has been Chair of Community Foundations of Canada, a member of the Community Foundation Leadership Team in the US Council on Foundations, and of course a TCFN participant.

He has also recently shared some other exciting news for the Foundation that the Province of Manitoba has contributed $10 million to the Foundation to establish a fund to be built to at least $20 million to support the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Project. The project is an initiative led by the Poplar River, Little Grand Rapids, Pauingassi and Pikangikum First Nations with support from the Manitoba and Ontario governments. A bid to secure UNESCO World Heritage designation for lands within a 40,000-sq-km of pristine boreal forest in Manitoba and Ontario is being prepared for consideration in 2011. This Fund will show UNESCO the Province’s and the Foundation’s support for the site.

As we prepare for the April 2010 Peer Exchange that will focus on how community foundations think about and address poverty, building awareness on the work of others in the field will be very valuable.  Please be sure to review the following, which offers recent news on the work USAID and the Grameen Foundation:

Grameen Foundation news releases

USAID Launches Partnership with Grameen Foundation

 
October 19, 2009

 The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and Grameen Foundation today announced a new private-public partnership to support local currency financing to microfinance institutions (MFIs) throughout the developing world. Alonzo Fulgham, Acting Administrator of USAID, and Alex Counts, CEO and President of Grameen Foundation, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalize the collaboration. To launch the partnership, USAID and Grameen Foundation recently entered into a $162.5 million joint guarantee agreement, which will help MFIs around the world gain greater access to financing and address some of the effects of tightening credit markets.

More than 150 million people around the world currently rely on microfinance, which makes financial services available to the poor for income-generating activities. The current financial crisis, however, has made it increasingly difficult for MFIs to access private capital. A credit guarantee from USAID and Grameen Foundation will support financing for MFIs and thus enable them to continue making loans to small businesses and low-income individuals in developing countries.

“We at USAID are proud of our thirty year commitment to microfinance, a commitment that we renew today,” said USAID’s Acting Administrator Alonzo Fulgham. “Increasing access to finance enables the world’s poor to improve their own lives, and this partnership will enable millions more to lift themselves out of poverty.”

Grameen Foundation’s CEO Alex Counts said “We are extremely pleased to join USAID in opening up new financing opportunities to microfinance institutions that will enable them to expand and serve more poor people. Grameen Foundation has been a strong advocate for providing funding to these institutions in their local currencies so that they are better insulated from global financial shocks and can also build important relationships within their local financial markets.”

For more information about USAID, visit www.usaid.gov.

For more information about Grameen Foundation, visit http://www.grameenfoundation.org.

The GEF in 2009—Scaling the Next Wall: Doing Better with Less—invites you to discuss with your fellow grant-makers how we can respond to the crisis both in terms of reducing the uncertainties and benefiting from the opportunities it offers. The GEF will start in the late afternoon of November 10 with a joint EFC-GEF event that will bring together leaders of foundations from across Europe. This joint event will be a unique opportunity twenty years after the Wall came down to reinforce the connection between “East” and “West” in European philanthropy, demonstrating that we are united against the common challenges we now face.

Over the course of the following two days at the GEF, we will search for new strategies in this changing environment. We will attempt to understand how climate change is affecting life in the communities we serve and how we can create space for innovations and creativity. We will examine the various forms nonprofits take and discuss how they can meet greater demand for the goods and services nonprofits offer with less and more competitive funding.

In addition to plenary discussions, you will have a chance to present issues of interest to you, explore ways to address them, and share your successes and failures at side sessions. Please help us shape the agenda by submitting, voting for and/or running a session!

Download the  GEF Registration Form here and visit the Grantmakers East Forum website for more details.

As TCFN expands over the coming months both geographically and programmatically, the advisory group that will help to guide expansion (consisting of about 13 TCFN participants) would like input from the field about the topics that are most relevant to the work of community foundations. 

We invite you to join the conversation!

What kind of topics should the TCFN discussions should focus on, and how would this be useful to your community foundation?
Some ideas could include:

• Practical (e.g. marketing, fundraising tools)
• Theoretical (e.g. leadership, community foundation standards and principles)
• Existential (climate change, poverty, social justice)

Click here to leave your responses and thoughts.

Reinhard Mohn, Founder of the Bertelsmann Stiftung

It is with deep sadness that the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation announces the death of its founder. Reinhard Mohn died yesterday at the age of 88. Together with his wife Liz Mohn, he represented the fifth generation of the Bertelsmann and Mohn owner/benefactor families. Until the last, he followed the Bertelsmann Stiftung’s work closely, as a member of its Board of Trustees.

Dr. Gunter Thielen, Chairman & CEO of the Bertelsmann Stiftung, said: “The foundation’s executive board and staff are in mourning for their benefactor Reinhard Mohn. He spent more than 30 years building the Bertelsmann Stiftung, developing ideas and implementing projects which, in his words, would ‘hopefully make society a little better’. Germany and the world have lost an outstanding personage, a luminary who played a formative role in post-war business and society in Germany.

Reinhard Mohn always regarded himself as an entrepreneur, philanthropist and citizen who actively embraced and shouldered responsibility. In the company, he developed a corporate culture founded on a decentralized approach to leadership, along with a high degree of autonomy and appreciation for individual employees. Civic engagement was a priority for him as both a businessman and citizen. Against this background, he set up the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation with a clear mandate to contribute to the advancement of society, politics, business and culture. This was reiterated in his last book, “Global Lessons,” in which he very vividly links his ideas to his personal biography. We regard his untiring dedication as a mandate to continue our work in his spirit and to keep providing effective impetus for change and reformation. Our thoughts go out to his family, especially to his wife Liz Mohn and his children.”

Reinhard Mohn was born on June 29, 1921 in Gütersloh, Germany. After returning from POW camp and beginning an apprenticeship in book retail, Mohn took over the management of his family’s printing and publishing business (C. Bertelsmann Verlag) in 1947. He expanded the business beyond publishing and distribution, adding industrial and service operations, the magazine business, and finally, television.
Mohn put his stamp on and developed Bertelsmann’s corporate culture, based on the essential principles of partnership, creativity, entrepreneurship and social responsibility.

In 1977, he established the Bertelsmann Stiftung foundation. In 1993, he transferred the majority of capital shares in Bertelsmann AG to the foundation, which with 76.9 percent of shares is now the media enterprise’s biggest shareholder. In 1999, he shifted the voting rights for the Annual General Meeting of Bertelsmann AG to the newly founded Bertelsmann Verwaltungsgesellschaft (BVG). By separating the capital from the voting rights Mohn took early steps to ensure Bertelsmann’s continuity and independence as a business.
 
During his lifetime, Reinhard Mohn received numerous honors and prizes in recognition of his outstanding achievements as an entrepreneur, benefactor and citizen, including the Federal Republic of Germany’s Great Cross of Merit with star, an honorary membership in the Club of Rome, the Spanish Grand Cross, and the Prince of Asturias Award. Mohn also was a recipient of the European Founder Award, the Schumpeter Award, and the Hans-Martin Schleyer Award, and in 2007 received the German Founders Award (Gründerpreis) for his lifetime achievement.

Please forward any messages of condolence to the attention of Dr. Alexandra Schmied:
Dr. Alexandra Schmied
Project Manager
Programm Unternehmenskultur in der Globalisierung
Bertelsmann Stiftung
Carl-Bertelsmann-Straße 256 | 33311 Gütersloh | Germ
Alexandra.Schmied@bertelsmann-stiftung.de

ATTENTION TCFN PARTICIPANTS! 

Be sure to contact Allyson Reaves at areaves@cfc-fcc.ca  if you are interested in attending the upcoming TCFN Peer Exchange.

Host: Janice Wing, Red Deer & District Community Foundation
Date: December 2-5, 2009
Topic:  Communtiy Foundations as catalysts for change in the environment

  Next week, hundreds of community foundation representatives will descend upon San Antonio, USA as part of the Council on Foundations’ 2009 Fall Conference for Community Foundations.   

Presenters include TCFN participants Mary Jalonick, Donnell Mersereau, and Shannon St. John.  See the list of other featured speakers here.

There will also be a number of educational sessions including the one offered by the DonorEdge Learning Community (DELC) called “Together We Are Smarter: Building a Learning Community” on Wed, October 07, 2009 10:00 am – 11:30 am.

The DELC is a think tank of community foundations committed to inspiring effective philanthropy. The session will be hosted by representatives of Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, The Columbus Foundation, and The San Diego Foundation.

The shared goals of the DELC are: 

• Increase charitable giving
• Educate and engage donors as investors
• Improve the quality of life in our communities

The DELC session is designed to be an interactive and useful conversation about ways your community foundation can:

• Improve processes, operational effectiveness, and delivery of service
• Create and improve products and innovations
• Increase and apply knowledge as a strategic value proposition

To learn more about the DELC, please visit the informative page on GuideStar at DonorEdge.