On April 18, The Community Foundation kicked off our Community Impact Forum series at Imagination Stage in downtown Bethesda. The event (formerly known as the Funder roundtable) is set to be the first in series of Impact Forums that The Community Foundation will host across our region to bring together fundholders, board members, corporate funders, and leaders from local private foundations.
The events – which have a strict no-solicitation policy – are designed to help participants learn more about the region and exchange ideas with other people who share a passion for strengthening the local community.
“The Impact Forum is designed to bring us together to better understand the needs we’re experiencing in communities, look at the lessons we’ve learned from the past, and discuss the strategies we can collaborate on to solve for the future,” shared Tonia Wellons, President & CEO of The Community Foundation.
Following the warm welcome from our CEO, guests heard from Darius Graham, Managing Director of Community Investment at The Community Foundation about the soon-to-be-released VoicesDMV Community Insights report.
The VoicesDMV Community Insights report is part of a comprehensive civic engagement initiative originally launched by The Community Foundation in 2017. This year, The Community Foundation has partnered with Gallup to conduct a regional survey to uncover how residents are doing, what challenges they are facing, what their hopes and dreams for the future are, and how they view important issues.
“Effective community work starts with hearing the voices within our community,” Graham explained as he shared some exclusive findings from the report. “That’s why we are excited to share this critical resource with all of you. Together, we can use these findings to not only drive future dialogue, but also future investments.”
To learn more, be sure to register for VoicesDMV’s official release event on Tuesday, May 21 at 10 a.m. More information about the event is available on our website.
Following the presentation, Anna Hargrave, Executive Director for Montgomery County, moderated a conversation with Alan Berube, Interim Vice President and Director of Brookings Metro and co-author of the book Confronting Suburban Poverty in America.
“We are at a point in this country where poverty is more pervasive in the suburbs than it is in big cities,” Berube shared when asked to respond to insights from the VoicesDMV report. “When we talk about how we address poverty in suburbs – like Montgomery County – we have to talk about the systemic barriers that are contributing to it.”
Berube explained that most suburban communities in America were not originally designed with the infrastructure necessary to serve families living below the federal poverty line.
As more families from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds have migrated to the suburbs in recent decades, many jurisdictions have been struggled to develop systems such as public transportation systems, scalable wrap-around services, and other basic aspects of anti-poverty infrastructure that are often more readily accessible in larger cities.
“The pandemic magnified these needs all around the country but especially in the suburbs,” Berube outlined. “The number of people living below the Federal Poverty Line in the suburbs is now three times higher than those living in larger cities.”
“Fortunately, many community foundations have played a huge role at stepping in and mobilizing to meet those needs.”
Berube applauded the Greater Washington Community Foundation for collaborating with local leadership to establish community partnerships that have allowed nonprofits to expand into Montgomery County, begin to address some of these infrastructure gaps, and push for systemic change that will help the entire community. He encouraged donors and community leaders to continue to seek out and fund organizations – especially smaller community-led nonprofits -- that see and treat the “whole family”, as opposed to solving for isolated issues.
Attendees left the event feeling energized to continue the conversation and work together to address our community’s most pressing needs.
If you’d like to learn more about future convenings, please contact Anna Hargrave at ahargrave@thecommunityfoundation.org.