Diana R. Sieger is the president of the Grand Rapids Commmunity Foundation. For more information, visit Diana's President's pages or view her biography.

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President's Point of View: Community Foundations = Positive Leadership

May 5, 2007

I am getting ready to teach community foundation staff and board members from Indiana the “basics” of what the world of community foundations is all about. For three days, participants will be guided through the maze of issues such as the importance of good governance, stewardship, grantmaking, community leadership, accountability, history, finance and investment practices - the entire gamut. I’m team teaching with Mike Batchelor who is the President of The Erie Community Foundation in Erie, Pennsylvania. He is a remarkable leader who is bright, energetic, and has a great sense of humor.

And the Council on Foundations calls this course “Community Foundation Fundamentals”. Deadly? Dry? Get out the snooze patrol? Hardly!

I have been teaching this course for four years and it is a part of an entire series provided through the Center for Community Foundation Excellence of the Council on Foundations (COF) based in Washington D.C. The courses are a result of a great deal of hard work that we did as a field in the late 1990s and earlier in this decade to create a strong curriculum to help guide staff and board through the growing complexities of leading a community foundation.

It isn’t for the faint of heart - - - running a community foundation that is. In the twenty years I have been privileged to be the President of this foundation, change is more the norm than status quo. In the beginning days of my tenure, I certainly leaned a great deal on my predecessor Pat Edison who has great insight and wisdom - I still call on her from time to time! Also the Foundation board members were a strong reference point. Norm DeGraaf was the board chair back then and he had the patience to guide me as I introduced a number of changes in foundation operations. He often told me - just go for one victory a board meeting and keep a steady pace. He also advised - don’t give up!

I also had the infamous fiery red Handbook for Community Foundations published by the Council on Foundations in 1977 written by the “father” of community foundations - Eugene Struckhoff who also served as the president of the Council more than 25 years ago. The book was brimming with all aspects of operating a community foundation. It was an invaluable resource but what it lacked was the human interaction and all the tools we rely on today - instant answers on a listserv, podcasts of seminars, webinairs and the like. However, I was glued to that book in the beginning!

The people who attend the courses like the one I am teaching will encounter some answers, more questions and will have the opportunity to share information and network. They will form relationships and that is what is so critical to our ultimate success - being able to connect with others to counter that feeling that “no one has ever experienced” this before and find fellow members of our field who can support others!

So here’s to three days of learning, laughter and delving into my favorite work - teaching about the phenomenal work of the growing field of community foundations. I feel that community foundations are the locus of community leadership in our country and definitely spreading globally.