What We Do
To buy a home, you work with a real estate agent to get the best deal for a home that’s right for you.
To plan your retirement, you enlist a financial advisor to shape a portfolio that meets your long-term needs.
So, to make a lasting difference for the community you love, why wouldn’t you partner with Broward’s local philanthropy experts to make the most of your giving?
The Community Foundation of Broward provides community leadership, fosters bold philanthropy and builds permanent resources to tackle Broward’s biggest challenges — today and forever.
- We partner with individuals, families and local organizations to create personalized charitable funds that fuel game-changing philanthropy.
- As a grantmaking public charity, we provide leadership and resources to support solutions that make Broward a better place to call home.
- Through the power of endowment, we build permanent resources for Broward to take care of itself today and forever.
Our mission is to transform Broward through focused leadership that fosters collaboration, builds endowment, advances equity and connects people who care to causes that matter.
What sets us apart?
Most charitable organizations focus on a single issue and their impact is tied to the highs and lows of year-to-year fundraising. At the Community Foundation of Broward, we take a more holistic, long-term approach.
We know our fast-growing community faces many mounting challenges. And we know Broward includes generous people who want to give back in different ways to support the community they love.
So, the Community Foundation provides focused leadership to tackle the issues that affect our community the most.
We create tailor-made giving strategies for philanthropists who partner with us to make a lasting difference.
And we build an endowment that ensures our community will always have resources to meet its needs, during good times and bad.
The Community Foundation of Broward provides:
- Expert guidance to identify the best opportunities to accomplish your charitable goals
- Personalized charitable funds to fuel support, in your name or anonymously, for your charitable priorities
- Accountability to ensure your charitable support is used as intended
- Opportunities to amplify your impact by pooling resources with like-minded philanthropists
- Peace of mind — we are a trusted Fiduciary with a more than 30-year track record of investment and grantmaking success
- The power of endowment to ensure your legacy of community support continues forever
Our mission is to transform Broward through focused leadership that fosters collaboration, builds endowment, advances equity and connects people who care to causes that matter.
Our History
Libby and Jack Deinhardt fell in love with Broward after moving here from Ohio and they wanted to shape a brighter future for their adopted home. So, Libby and Jack formed a small, dedicated team of community leaders who shared their vision of giving back to the place they all called home. Working together, these visionaries founded the Community Foundation of Broward in 1984.
Libby and Jack and their fellow Community Foundation pioneers understood that Broward required a champion for local philanthropy – able to deliver focused leadership, foster innovative collaboration and fuel support to take on Broward’s big challenges. They believed in the power of endowment to build sustainable resources that would keep pace with our fast-growing community’s ever-changing needs. They envisioned a day when partnering with the Community Foundation would become the best way for local philanthropists to create a legacy of always being there for Broward.
Thanks to their foresight and commitment, the Community Foundation of Broward is now a trusted force for good in Broward. Working in partnership with our dedicated Fundholders, we provide community leadership, foster bold philanthropy and build permanent resources to tackle Broward’s biggest challenges — today and forever.
Now, nearly 40 years after Libby and Jack launched their pioneering efforts, the Community Foundation of Broward has grown to:
Community Foundation of Broward milestones
With a nearly 40-year track record of leadership and grantmaking success, the Community Foundation of Broward is a strong and stable force for good that tackles Broward’s big challenges today and shapes a brighter future. Here’s a look back through the years at some of the ways we have spurred positive, transformative change that makes Broward a better place to call homes.
Growing local support for the community foundation concept
- Community Foundation of Broward is launched, attracting the best and brightest community leaders.
- Decreased HIV/AIDS infections rates among newborns due to increased testing rates of women in childbearing years. As the first private funder in Broward, we led the charge on HIV/AIDS prevention education. Over the next 20 years we dramatically increased awareness and testing and attracted $3.7 million to invest in localized prevention solutions.
- Increased productivity of 11,000 nonprofit staff and Board leaders producing high-performing organizations. This Leadership program was the first of its kind in Broward and the state, and was one of our signature programs for 20 years.
By 1997: $20 million in assets, total annual grants now top just over $1 million
Earning national reputation as a leading community foundation that fosters collaboration and amplifies philanthropic impact
- First in Florida to receive accreditation on the National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations. The accreditation process is rigorous, and demonstrates our commitment to accountability and excellence to its donors, its community, policymakers, and the public.
- Created the first LGBT Fund in Florida addressing inequality and support for diversity. Investments of $8 million enhanced major LGBT serving agencies with infrastructure, capacity growth and program development. We are among the top 5 LGBT community foundation Funders in the nation.
- Originated Broward Cares, a unique disaster recovery collaborative designed to fill gaps, reduce redundancies and be nimble in recovery and rebuilding efforts. This first of its kind collaboration with United Way and Jewish Federation has since been duplicated across the state with our help.
- Initiated Foster Care reform in Broward by putting a spotlight on an issue that had no advocates. By creating public/private partnerships, Broward formed a safety-net for the 800 youth who age-out of foster care annually. It included the creation of a dedicated one-stop agency that connects youth to education, housing, jobs, and transportation and life-coaching.
- Stimulated 10,000 hours of cutting-edge volunteerism to capitalize on the talent of newly retired baby boomers. This four-year initiative, Re-engage for Good produced new strategies that are now embedded in organizations to engage this talent in new ways.
- Endowed Fund became our signature as a solid permanent revenue stream for Broward. One of six in the nation to be awarded a prestigious challenge grant to grow endowed Funds. It so internalized our thinking that now more than 92% of our assets are endowed, exceeding the national average and demonstrating the belief in our work by those who create Funds with us.
By 2010: $86 million in assets, total annual grants $4.1 million
Empowering local philanthropists to make Broward a stronger community
- Received largest bequest in Broward’s history -- $43 million dollars demonstrating belief in both the Foundation and Broward to achieve great things.
- Ranked in top 100 community foundations in the nation due to growth of size and impact (and have remained there for the past 6 years).
- Adopted 10 critical issues that matter that affect Broward County. This strategy has allowed us to spotlight the problems and solutions and engage others to this work.
- 75% of D and F middle school students enrolled in Foundation supported programs increased their math and reading scores due to long-term commitment to move the needle in education. The School District now embraces middle school strategies as a critical fork in the road to drive graduation rate to 90% target.
- Galvanized the community to reauthorize the Children’s Services Council. Its passage produces $60 million annually around children’s issues.
By 2017: $180 million in assets, total annual grants $10 million
Building Broward’s endowment to keep pace with growing challenges
- Launched the BE BOLD Leadership Campaign to raise $500 million by 2024 and build an endowment able to keep pace with fast-growing community needs.
- Campaign reaches $100 million milestone due to 100% participation by the Board of Directors, new Funds, new estate planning promises, increased referrals from professional advisors and current Fundholders, and matured estate gifts.
- Campaign hits $250 million milestone in 2022, buoyed by record numbers of new Community Builders and Legacy Society members joining the growing movement.
- The Community Foundation provides more than $6 million in pandemic response – pivoting to provide support for residents’ emergency needs and also investing in long-term solutions to the far-reaching effects of the crisis.
- The Community Foundation in 2020 increases its efforts to support social justice by launching a new workplan called Racial Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, or REDI.
- Implementation of the REDI workplan includes teaming up with other organizations to coordinate training sessions about systemic racism and implicit bias. In addition, new arts grants support social justice-themed performances, exhibitions, documentaries, workshops, podcasts and more to help bridge differences, promote dialogue and shape our way forward.
- Broward’s graduation rates rise from 77% to 86% due in part to our School is Cool work focused around middle school success and our ability to assist the District in measuring attainment.
- Our Silver Tsunami report on the plight of vulnerable seniors has become a “go to” reference for leaders. State legislators, judges, senior service providers continue to cite this report as their call to action for change and it caused the creation of a first of its kind Aging Funders Collaborative.
- The first Funder to create LGBTQ inclusion in mainstream organizations. This work has influenced their organizational culture, programming and branding to be more inclusive and caring.
- The largest private, local funder of cancer clinical trials in Broward. This work has allowed local institutions to receive NCI designation as a world class research institution.
Today, the Community Foundation has grown to:
- 23 highly skilled professional staff members
- 22 innovative executives and dedicated community leaders on our Board of Directors
- 39-year track record as a trusted Fiduciary that delivers focused leadership and BOLD community impact
- $19 million in fiscal year 2023 grantmaking, with $175 million in total grants provided since our founding in 1984
- 532 charitable funds created by partnering with local philanthropists who give through the Community Foundation
- 57 Community Builders – philanthropists who partnered with us to create endowed charitable funds of $1 million or more
- $260 million in total assets – our grantmaking muscle – of which 90% is endowed (exceeding the national average of 68%)
- Ranked No. 83 among the top 100 community foundations in the nation