Community Impact
Impact Stories
Established Funds
The Community Foundation is here to help you create a meaningful and lasting change in your community. The Foundation has a variety of fund structures to offer you the levels of support, involvement and recognition you desire.
With a variety of ways to give, you can establish a fund today, plan to give in the future, or contribute to an existing fund. You can choose to support your favourite charities, specific areas of interest, or create unique opportunities for community investment.
Grants Awarded
Donor-Advised Funds generate most of the grants distributed by the Foundation each year in support of charities donors care about.
Agency Funds provide a sustainable source of revenue to charities by building up resources that can be granted to the organization every year.
The Foundation accepts applications to the Vital Community Grants program each year. Vital Community Grants support the people, ideas and activities that build community vitality in the Peterborough area, ensuring charities have the skills, tools, and resources to respond to our community’s top priorities. In 2019, Vital Community grants supported initiatives working to strengthen community connections in the Peterborough area.
When we celebrated the Community Foundation’s 10th anniversary at the annual Giving Gala in January 2019 we wanted to do something special. We asked ten local charities: If you had one wish and $1,000 to make it happen, what would you do? Then we asked guests at the Giving Gala to make a donation to support one of those wishes. In a wonderful example of the power of giving together, we were able to raise $8,500 to grant each of those charity’s wishes, and we surprised them with these Here for Good grants in March. We repeated the process in 2020 and raised close to $5,800 for seven local charities.
Within days of the declaration of the COVID-19 emergency, the Community Foundation, donors and front line charities sprang into action. Knowing that the pandemic would hit some harder than others and that orders to stay home and self-isolate would be more difficult for those who rely on shelters, food banks and meal programs, the Foundation established the Community Response Fund. Learn more about pandemic-related grants and activities.
Meet Local Donors
While there are many reasons that people in our community choose the Foundation as their partner in philanthropy, all of our donors have something in common: they care about our community. Our donors tell us:
“If you’re going to live in a community, you want it to be a good community.”
“This is the place where I live, this is home, and I want to do everything I can to make this place a great place.”
“Giving back to the community is about balancing the equation.”
“We just did what we could to make our community even better.”
Learn more about why our donors give See who our recent donors are
Join the Vital Community Movement
The Vital Community Fund is our community’s resource to support the people, ideas and activities that build community vitality in the Peterborough area. Grants from this fund will support charities in the City and County of Peterborough that are working on our community’s top priorities.
By giving together, we can meet today’s challenges and build for tomorrow. Whether you give $10.00 or 10% of your salary, every gift is combined and invested in the fund, building a permanent endowment that we can use to take action and make change, together.
Jennifer DeBues |
Executive Director