Learning more and giving more
One of the biggest challenges for many charitable people is how to find out about great organizations. That's why Elna Brendel enjoys learning more about Community Fund grants twice a year and recommending grants through the Richard S. & Elna B. Riley Family Advised Fund to support some of these same organizations.

"Some organizations just don't have much name recognition," she said. "If you're involved with the organization, you may think everybody knows about it, but if you're not involved, you really don't."

Elna herself has been a passionate supporter of Interfaith Hospitality House and its work to provide housing for families who are homeless. But until she sat down with Kathryn Corey, Director of Donor Relations, she did not know about the work of Family Connection and its street outreach program called Project Hope, which provides survival aid items and counseling support for runaway and homeless youths. As part of the Giving Together program, she added her grant request for Family Connection and three other nonprofits this spring to the grants awarded from Community Funds.

Reaching out to answer basic human needs is always going to be important to her, Brendel said, and she wants to stretch her grantmaking beyond the organizations she already knows about. 

"Organizations that don't have as much prestige or recognition need money just as much as those that are well known, and the Community Foundation can help me find out about them," she said.  "And if the money is there to give back, I want to give back."

Elna also enjoys looks forward to the chance to join staff on site visits during future grant cycles. "I know the Community Foundation staff goes through everything about each organization," she said.  "If y'all have already said this is a good thing, it's a good thing."

Family Connection was one of 52 organizations that received grant awards from Community Funds in this first competitive grant cycle of 2008.  The ratio of requests to dollars available was 7 to 1, making additional grants like those from the Riley Family Advised Fund even more important to the organizations and to making life better for the most vulnerable people in our community.