Arkansas Community Foundation

Arkansas Community Foundation, the only community foundation that serves the entire state, is going on 28 years old, but its most rapid growth has come since its 20th anniversary in 1996. In that time, the individual charitable funds that make up the foundation have grown from 250 to almost 700 and assets have grown from $14 million to $53 million.

In fiscal 2003, ARCF made grants of approximately $3 million, bringing the total that has been granted over the years to $35 million, according to President and CEO Pat Lile.

The big numbers, however, mask the true nature of Arkansas Community Foundation, which gets and gives much smaller amounts.

“One of the most beautiful aspects of a community foundation is that one does not have to be a Rockefeller to be a philanthropist,” Lile said. “Anyone can create a permanent legacy through building an endowment which will be managed by the community foundation in perpetuity.”

Creating a named endowment takes $10,000, but many of ARCF’s donors give as little as $10, Lile said, while others have created funds of seven-digits. And the grants that come out of the foundation typically “range in size from $100 to $50,000 but can be for any amount,” she said.

Those grants have, for example, underwritten a Hispanic reading project in Dumas, provided support for the Little Theatre in Fort Smith, given aid to the Humane Society in several counties and sent young people to the Heifer International Ranch in order better to understand the problem of hunger worldwide.

One major Arkansas corporation has established a fund at ARCF that can be tapped when an employee experiences a personal catastrophe.

Arkansas Community Foundation encourages this sort of corporate philanthropy through its own awards, which has been incorporated into the Arkansas Business of the Year awards program for the past three years.