Announcing Giving Together for 2010

Since coming to the Santa Fe Community Foundation a month ago I have been learning about the tremendous work being done by grantees and other nonprofits in our region.   I am so delighted to be a part of this vibrant and caring community.  Our community of funders would benefit greatly by knowing more about your work.  To that end, I am instituting a change to the grantmaking process here at SFCF that will increase your organization’s visibility to our fundholders and provide them with valuable information about community need and opportunities to address those needs through grantmaking.

As part of the annual grants process we will create a catalogue summarizing all eligible proposals to share with the entire family of SFCF donor advisors.  Fundholders will be invited to fund, in part or in whole, any proposals that are of interest to them. We will then take the remaining unfunded (and partially funded) proposals through our grants committee process as in previous years.

This is an experiment.  We hope to see an increase in the amount of money given away.  As we introduce Giving Together we invite you to share with us your observations about the process – what works well and what doesn’t.  Because this is new, we also ask for your patience and flexibility as we work out the many details during implement-ation.  For example, this new system will require that we rethink the site visit process.  Site visits will no longer NECESSARILY be a part of the decision making process.  We will assess the need for site visits on a case-by-case basis.

In order to allow for enough time to implement this new program, we are moving the proposal submission period up by one month: proposals may be submitted online anytime between April 14 and 5 p.m. on May 24, 2010 .

As in the past, Christa Coggins will be hosting pre-proposal workshops for anyone wishing to learn more about SFCF’s guidelines and application process.  They will be held at the Santa Fe Association of Realtors on:  

       Thursday, April 1, 2-4 pm or
       Tuesday, April 13, 2-4 pm or
       Wednesday, April 28, 9-11 am.  

The workshops are free, so please sign up early on the Workshops  page of our website.

Thank you for welcoming me so warmly to this community. I am looking forward to many years of work together to make Santa Fe a thriving community for all.

Press On!

Brian T. Byrnes
President & CEO