by Liz Daube
Staff Writer
The United Way, RALLY Jacksonville!, the Museum of Science and History: these, and dozens of other local nonprofit organizations and initiatives, have something in common. The Community Foundation in Jacksonville helps them with the financial side of donations — and according to the Foundation’s president, Nina Waters, those details can be tricky.
“People think giving money away is easy,” said Waters. “It really isn’t if you give it in an informed and effective way to create lasting impact in the community. It is much more complicated than people think.”
The Foundation’s work has mostly been behind-the-scenes, but Waters said that might be changing. She explained that the Foundation has three main goals: finance managing, grant making and nurturing philanthropy.
The Foundation helps local non- profits and donors manage their money, almost like a bank would. They also counsel people who want advice on their donation options and help give money away in the form of grants. Basically, the Foundation connects people who care with causes and financial strategies that suit their needs.
Nurturing philanthropy means advocacy, research and initiatives — essentially getting more information and donations for causes. However, that goal often requires a bit more public presence than the Foundation has sought.
So, after 41 years and more than $100 million in assets, the Foundation is stepping into the spotlight — sort of. They recently launched Quality Education for All, a 10-year public education initiative for the Jacksonville area.
“My goal is to support organizations that help others,” said Waters. “We don’t want to take credit for these things. We’re facilitating, but we’re only one person in a community-wide effort.”
Quality Education for All won’t be the first initiative the Foundation has undertaken, and it certainly isn’t the only education improvement project in Jacksonville. But its longevity and expansive nature make Quality Education for All special, Waters said. The Foundation plans to work with a variety of organizations (including the school system), conduct public opinion research and serve as “an engine of change.”
“We’ve all been trying to work on issues that are important to the community, but we haven’t been working together,” said Waters.
For the last two years, the Foundation has held focus groups with everyone from students to members of the clergy figure out which issues matter most to the community. The overwhelming response, Waters said, was public education problems. Quality Education for All aims to streamline Jacksonville’s efforts to solve those problems.
“Things can get duplicated,” said Waters. “Things can fall through the cracks.”
Waters added that the Foundation modeled their plans after other education programs, such as RALLY Jacksonville!, Mayor John Peyton’s early literacy initiative. RALLY Jacksonville!, which has its own fund for public contributions with the Foundation, focuses on teaching preschool age children how to read.
“They (children) need to learn to read from (ages) zero to five,” said Waters. “They need to read to learn after that.”
Susie Wiles, chief of communications and special initiatives for the mayor’s office, said the goal of RALLY Jacksonville! is to make sure children enter school ready to read and learn. The children have made some progress, Wiles said, but real change can be slow and difficult to measure.
That slow change is exactly why Waters said Jacksonville needs a longterm initiative like Quality Education for All. She added that RALLY Jacksonville! is good at helping preschool children, but the Foundation program needs to target elementary and middle school students.
“When you try to approach an issue, you have to have multiple strategies,” said Waters. “The hardest thing, I think, is being patient. There are lots of different issues, and we always want to be able to do more.”
While the Jacksonville branch is the first Community Foundation in Florida and operates independently, there are Community Foundations all over the United States. Waters said the Jacksonville branch’s stronger focus on community leadership makes it unique among Community Foundations.
“We’ve spent a great deal of time putting the ‘community’ back in Community Foundation,” said Waters. ”We have the ability to be one of those organizations that brings about change.”