Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta recognizes 29 high performing nonprofits with a total of $1.84 million in funding from its annual and highly competitive General Operating Support grants. These organizations meet the high standards of an extremely rigorous review process that is widely viewed as the gold standard of nonprofit excellence. The General Operating Support grant program is funded from the Foundation’s endowment funds made possible by generous donors who have entrusted the Community Foundation to steward their gifts for community betterment in perpetuity.
 
“These competitive grants are the hallmark of the triangle of trust between the expertise of the Community Foundation, the passion of donors seeking to make a difference, and the nonprofits delivering vital services on the frontlines of need,” said Alicia Philipp, president, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. “Donors place extraordinary trust in us to wisely steward these discretionary grants. The grant signals our trust that the nonprofit will direct funds to the most effective use. The triangle’s third element of trust is with donors and others throughout the community who look to this seal of approval to help inform their own philanthropic decisions.”
 
The General Operating Support grants are made possible because of gifts left to the Foundation over its nearly 70 years of service to the community, gifts such as the Sundown Fund established by John T. (Jack) Lupton II. In the 1970s and 1980s he transformed his family’s bottling franchise into the largest in The Coca-Cola Company system by expanding into high-growth sun-belt markets. Mr. Lupton’s emphasis on operational scale helped shift the industry model from small bottlers to efficient, multi-state enterprises. As a philanthropist he was equally visionary. He saw the long-range wisdom of enabling his fund to address needs that did not even exist in his lifetime. Today, eight years after his death, the $7.5 million Sundown Fund continues to inject valuable resources for a range of Atlanta regional causes, provided because Atlanta was the birthplace of his entrepreneurial success.
 
This General Operating Support competitive program attracted 236 applications that were subjected to a rigorous review process, including an assessment of each organization’s volunteer and staff leadership and vision, commitment to diversity, financial management systems and fiscal strength, fundraising and earned revenue, programmatic services, innovation and partnerships, operating efficiency and measures of the impact it is making to improve lives and the quality of life across the region.
 
“The 29 organizations awarded range from those with a long history meeting the needs of our region to those that are newer, entrepreneurial and innovative with bold plans to meet today’s challenges,” said Lita Pardi, director of resource deployment at the Community Foundation. “We’re excited to recognize the savvy these organizations bring to lifting up and addressing complex needs in our region and driving positive change. We award these grants with no strings attached, confident that the organizations already know where these dollars will be best used.”