ABOUT US
What are Community Foundations
The Community Foundation concept is to pool the charitable resources of people from all walks of
life, both living and deceased, into a permanent collection of funds set within a single permanent
trust administered for the community by the community.
The first Community Foundation
The first Community Foundation was set up in Cleveland, Ohio in 1914, and the Nevis Community Foundation (NCF) is based on the model for philanthropic giving developed over the past 100 years in countries such as the USA, Canada, UK, and the West Indies. There are now over 1700 Community
Foundations worldwide. It is a proven model that works.Need prayer? We would love to pray for you. You can send us a message for prayer. The spirit of sisterhood is seen and felt in the fervent prayer of thousands.
The funding model
The funding model aims to provide long-term sustainable charitable and philanthropic giving for Nevis through:
- Building a growing capital endowment funding base through philanthropic giving. In the
Community Foundation model donors do not have to set up their own charity but can use the
Community Foundation to handle grant administration and applications for them - Giving grants from income from the endowment fund to charities and groups, whilst leaving
the capital endowment fund to continue to grow; or - Giving revenue grants if donors prefer that approach
Why a Community Foundation for Nevis
Nevisians are self sufficient, self reliant and independently minded people, whose communities have a concern for each other’s well-being, and a culture of mutual support. However, Nevis and its people (as anywhere else in the world) face a number of challenges and the government cannot be expected, nor does it have the resources to meet all of these.
In 2016 discussions began about how to develop the capacity of the Nevis community to respond to community needs and aspirations without having to rely on government funding and support.
We looked at different models. A Nevis resident, who also lives in England and is involved in a Community Foundation in England, talked about benefits and potential of the Community Foundation concept.
From that start further research was undertaken about the development of Community Foundations across the world, including in the Caribbean – for example the US Virgin islands (www.cfvi.net) and Anguilla (www.acf.org.ai).
At the beginning of 2018 a Steering Group was formed to establish a Community Foundation in
Nevis, and in July 2018 the Foundation was registered with the Nevis Island Administration as a non profit organisation under Nevis law.
What we aim to achieve
The Nevis Community Foundation aims to improve the quality of life of Nevisians and respond to
identified needs through:
• Providing grants in response to identified individual or community needs
• Developing a mentoring arm of volunteers giving time and skills to support: local non profit
organisations and community groups; young people looking get into employment or to set up a
business; or older people wishing to change career
• Promote specific development initiatives and capacity building (where there are no existing
charities or community groups) to address a particular identified need.
The charitable aims of the Nevis Community Foundation ensure that it is able to fund a wide range
of causes, so that it can respond both to local needs identified and areas of interest of donors.
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Development Phase
Having set up the legal structure, the NCF is now in the Development Phase and focusing on
three main tasks:
1.
Publicising the establishment of the NCF and reaching out to potential Founding
donors
2.
Setting up the systems to enable donors with tax registration outside Nevis, for
example in the USA, Canada and the UK, to secure maximum tax benefits and tax
relief for their donations – for example registration with the IRS in the USA as a
section 501(c)3
3.
Beginning the process of identifying community needs and aspirations
Development Mentor
The NCF is being mentored in its development phase by Dee Baecher-Brown, President of
the Community Foundation of the US Virgin Islands.
