Give where you live
By Sue Hafkemeyer / President and CEO
As simple as they are, those four words cut straight to the core of what we believe in at the Quad Cities Community Foundation—and they resonate just as deeply with generous people across our community who are moved to make a difference here at home.
Since joining the community this year, I’ve heard from a great many of those people about why they give where they live. For some, giving to those in need or supporting the social safety net is simply a closely held value. For others, it’s a way to invest in a cooler, more creative, connected, and prosperous Quad Cities. Some recognize the incredible talent and power of our region’s nonprofit sector and want to see it thrive. Others are sensitive to the major influence the places we call home have on our upbringing and the advantages we enjoy, so they know that giving where they live means making the biggest impact with their generosity.
Whatever your reason for giving where you live, we’re here to help your gifts be as meaningful to your community as they are to you personally. That’s why I’m so excited to introduce the Community Foundation’s Giving Catalog, a new tool for giving where you live.
Within our Giving Catalog, you have the unique opportunity to browse—and support—specific, limited-time projects and initiatives Quad Cities nonprofits are undertaking to further their missions. You can read brief descriptions of projects to help you choose the best fit for your generosity. Every proposal in the Giving Catalog has been reviewed by the Community Foundation team—and every one of them is worthy of your consideration. The Giving Catalog will only be open through January 15, so I hope you’ll start exploring today.
The giving opportunities you’ll find in this edition of the Giving Catalog are special. For one thing, they’re proposals our budget didn’t allow us to provide with Nonprofit Capacity Building Grants this fall, which means your generosity will be all the more deeply felt. And as investments in core systems and operations, these projects will strengthen our community’s nonprofits not just today but far into the future.
There are other great ways to give where you live this holiday season, of course. You can give to a Community Impact Fund to fuel our annual grantmaking or help build a scholarship fund to create opportunities for local students. You can support a field of interest fund to impact an issue close to your heart or make a gift in honor of someone who loved this community.
As I look toward the end of the year and reflect on my first six months as a Quad Citizen, I can confidently say that “give where you live” is much more than a clever catchphrase to this community. It’s a source of joy, an example to set, a profound expression of generosity. We’re grateful that you give where you live so that generosity lives here.