The Community Foundation of South Puget Sound is a catalyst for charitable giving in Thurston, Mason, and Lewis counties.
For 30+ years, we’ve helped make local giving more effective across the South Puget Sound. Together with our community, we’ve supported a variety of arts, education, health, housing, food, and environmental work to strengthen our region.
As a trusted partner with deep roots, strong community ties, and a passion for local philanthropy, we exist to help donors make a difference today and build community resources for the future. We do this by listening, learning, building relationships, and offering flexible giving options for generous people to support work that makes a difference right here where we live.
Our Mission
To inspire philanthropic efforts that enrich our communities.
Generosity is for everyone. It sparks hope and possibility, embraces the needs of real people, and celebrates our shared humanity. Since our founding in 1989, the generosity of our community has allowed us to make more than $21 million in grants and scholarships. These funds have been transformed into college degrees, meals, winter clothes, books, medicine, therapy, shelter, solar panels, forests, farmland, healthy rivers, music, art, and more—all for this place and the people who live here.
To fulfill our mission, we are committed to the following:
We Connect
People who care with causes that matter to them. We are respected for our community knowledge. We offer flexible giving options and provide local stewardship of donated funds.
We Contribute
To local communities through a strategic grantmaking program that is flexible, visionary, and inclusive. We are recognized for proactively identifying and funding critical community needs.
We Collaborate
With other community partners to create a learning culture that strives for constant improvement and innovation to foster growth and change.
What is a Community Foundation?
A community foundation is a philanthropic organization dedicated to strengthening local communities.
Individuals, families, and businesses contribute to nonprofit organizations through community foundations, which accept donations and operate funds on their behalf. Donating or setting up a fund through a community foundation is a simple way to ensure that your contribution stays in and improves your own community.
Anyone can make a difference—now and for the future.
The Community Foundation manages charitable gifts from individual donors, families, businesses, and nonprofits. The proceeds from these funds generate grants and scholarships today, while preserving resources for tomorrow’s priorities.
Partnering with our knowledgable staff helps identify where your charitable gifts will have the most impact. Together, we co-create charitable funds that help meet community challenges. Then, guided by what you care about, we invest and administer those funds, awarding scholarships to local students and grants to organizations that do good work in our communities.
Why give through a community foundation?
Giving through a community foundation, like the Community Foundation of South Puget Sound, has a number of benefits:
You can make an immediate or a long-term impact—or both! A community foundation’s goal is to create lasting change by supporting effective local nonprofits. But they’re also connected to people who are doing the work every day, so they’re in a position to direct gifts to organizations meeting in-the-moment needs. The staff at a community foundation can work with you to ensure that your gift will help give immediate relief, be part of a long-range plan to make a difference, or both.
Your giving experience is flexible. There are many paths to giving. You decide what stipulations will—or will not—apply to your gift, whether or not to remain anonymous, what kind of assets to give, and which organizations you’d like to partner with.
Gifts may qualify for tax advantages. Because the Community Foundation of South Puget Sound is a nonprofit corporation under tax code 501(c)(3), your contribution is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
Foundations play a nationwide role in public philanthropy.
Community foundations are the fastest growing sector of philanthropy in the United States. Currently, there are about 700 community foundations across the country with combined assets of more than $31 billion. Community foundations are a popular choice for donors because we connect donor interests with specific community needs, helping donors make a deeper impact right in the places where they live.