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Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
With her genuinely good heart and a wealth of experience behind her, Susannah works to connect local business and non-profit leaders to their neighbors. In a community like ours in which so many have invested their lives, there are fantastic stories all around us that motivate and inspire, often right next door. She hopes to share some of those here, on the Good Neighbor Podcast. Book an interview today at GNPAuburn.com
Good Neighbor Podcast: Auburn and Opelika
Ep.#54: Transforming Alabama Philanthropy: Burton Crenshaw on Community Foundation Partnerships and Impact
Discover how the merger of two community foundations is transforming philanthropic efforts across Alabama! Join us as we sit down with Burton Crenshaw from the Central Alabama Community Foundation to discuss the formation of the East Alabama Community Foundation affiliate. Burton shares the innovative ways this partnership is extending grant funding opportunities to local nonprofits, churches, and organizations across 14 counties. Learn about the foundation's mission to connect donors with community needs and the empowering effect of pooling resources to create a bigger impact. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the dynamic role of community foundations in addressing unique local challenges.
Don't miss Burton's insights into the rewarding nature of collaborating with nonprofits and dispelling myths about charitable giving. He emphasizes that every contribution counts, regardless of its size, and that community foundations are accessible to all, not just the wealthy. We also highlight the vital role nonprofits play in enriching our communities and how you can get involved with CACF to support local resources. With a particular focus on Lee County, Burton introduces us to his dedicated team, their methods of providing assistance, and offers a heartfelt invitation to nominate your favorite local businesses for future episodes. Tune in to be inspired and learn how you can make a difference in your community!
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Susanna Hodges.
Speaker 2:Welcome. With me is Burton Crenshaw of the Central Alabama Community Foundation. Welcome, Burton. I'm excited to have you on the program with me today.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, I'm excited to have you on the program with me today. Well, thank you, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:So there's been some moving and shaking going on with the Central Alabama Community Foundation. You have you're actually partnering with the East Alabama Community Foundation, and that's actually a new name, so tell me all about that.
Speaker 3:Yes. So the Central Alabama Community Foundation has been serving the Central Alabama area, the River Region, for over 37 years. We also serve additional counties. We have been serving a total of 10 counties all the way from the River Region down to the Wiregrass area, and in this merger with the Community Foundation of East Alabama, this gives us four additional counties that we will be serving for not only nonprofits but providing them grant funding, but also individuals and businesses that want to be philanthropic and give back to their community. So it's great that we get to see both sides of that equation in making communities better. So we serve Montgomery, lowndes, macon, otagin, elmore counties, then we serve Chambers, lee, russell and Tallapoosa, now with those new four, and then we jump down to the Wiregrass with Coffey, dale, geneva and Henry in Houston counties. So 14 counties in the state of Alabama are now being served by our donors at the Community Foundation.
Speaker 2:So the Lee County area. They experienced a name change right when they formed a partnership with the overall Central Alabama Community Foundation. Have I got?
Speaker 3:that right. Yes, it is kind of a hard way to explain it, but their board of directors elected to merge up under the Central Alabama Community Foundation to form an affiliate. So the Central Alabama Community Foundation is the entity, but we have an affiliate name, the East Alabama Community Foundation. That that's what we will be using when we are in counties in East Alabama, that if anybody is receiving funds from us, they're receiving it from the East Alabama Community Foundation. So monies that individuals want to stay in this East Alabama area will be staying in these counties. So just because our main office is located in Montgomery, all the money that we work with our donors goes to those entities in the counties they want it to go to. So we are providing resources back into the communities that that our donors love and cherish.
Speaker 2:So tell me a little bit about those resources. What kind of you know? What are you funding?
Speaker 3:you know what are you funding. What kind of things do y'all do? We fund nonprofit entities, 501c3 tax status entities. We also will fund churches that are providing different type of mission work. Those are the type of entities and we also work on the other side with individuals and businesses that want to pool their resources to be philanthropic and maybe would like a conduit like the Community Foundation to give through into the communities.
Speaker 3:Because we get entrenched in the communities we serve, we learn the needs. We learn the nonprofits that are meeting those needs. We learn what their struggles are. What is holding them back from providing more services? What is it that needs being met? And we work with donors to meet those needs.
Speaker 3:When we pool our resources as donors, we can make such an impact in our communities and the Community Foundation is here to do that for the citizens, not only for those giving back and being philanthropic, but for those that are in need of the services when they feel like they've lost hope and that maybe they're at the last of their resources and they may be homeless or they don't have something to feed their children tonight.
Speaker 3:We want to give these nonprofits the resources to meet those needs, and so we get to see both sides of it so well. We get to talk with donors and say this is what you can do as a group, as a community hence Community Foundation to give back. So not only do donors come to us for philanthropic, they do receive a tax deduction, just like they would giving directly to a nonprofit. But sometimes, pooling our resources, we're able to give back more into the community. That's right. We're doing it all individually. You know it takes a village, it does yeah, and so we are just a great conduit. People give through us. We don't say they give to us because we are going to turn around and give that money out.
Speaker 2:Well, tell me a little bit about, like, some of the partnerships that you guys have. What are some of those nonprofits like?
Speaker 3:some of the partnerships that you guys have. What are some of those nonprofits? Well, we are still in the early stages of learning the nonprofits in the East Alabama area. So if anybody that's affiliated with a nonprofit hears this podcast, please reach out to us and let us know about you, because we are now working with the local and city and county governments in all the areas and the chamber of commerces and the county extensions. We are getting out introducing ourselves to them. We are saying we are going to be in your communities giving out grant funds to nonprofits.
Speaker 3:Help us learn your communities, because there's no better way to do it than to start with the city and the counties and the chambers to say you know, tell us, and we're also learning about what the needs are. So the Chamber of Commerce's in these counties have been fabulous in giving us the nonprofits that they know are doing fantastic work. We're also doing our own research, compiling lists, putting out press releases, podcasts like this, to spread the word. We want people to hear us because we know people get their information in a lot of different ways. So anything that people can help tell us about. But we give back in all the different categories as far as Food, shelter, medical arts, education, community building, social services. We cover all of those gamuts, so any nonprofit providing services into their community. We want to learn about you, we want to be able to tell you about us and how we can provide funds to you.
Speaker 2:So that's an incredible opportunity for this area. That sounds very exciting.
Speaker 3:Well, we are really excited. We will have a grant, a competitive grant process, in these four counties Chambers, lee, russell and Tallapoosa in 2024. We don't have the exact dates yet, but what we'll do is we'll take in grant applications from nonprofits that are providing services and then we will review those applications and award funds to those nonprofits in 2024. So that's probably the biggest new thing that we'll be providing into these counties on a larger scale. The Pryor Community Foundation was doing some grants in those areas, but we're going to take it up a notch and we will start it become an annual process where nonprofits will know every year this is when these grant applications open and so. But we'll also be looking for those in the community that want to partner with us to provide these funds. So we'll be out there looking for people to make donations into us. But sometimes the best way to learn about a community foundation and what we do is to see what we do. Yes, that's what we want to do first is give grants out into the community.
Speaker 2:Well, let's shift a little bit here in our conversation. I want to learn a little bit more about you, Burton. Tell me a little bit about your journey into this type of work. What led you here?
Speaker 3:Well, in a prior life I worked for a bank in a trust department and the foundation was a customer of ours, so I learned about what the foundation was doing from the trust and charitable and the tax side and all of that. Then I stayed home with my kids for a little while when they were little, as a lot of moms do, and while I loved being home with my kids, I needed to be out there working. I was one of those people, so I wanted to do something in the community that wasn't just a job.
Speaker 3:I wanted to be able to give back, and the opportunity to come work at the Community Foundation came along in 2008. And I have been here ever since. I started out as the development officer and in 2011, I was promoted to the president. And here I still am and loving every minute of it. You know, when people say, oh, my job doesn't feel like work, sometimes people think, oh, that's just a hokey, saying, well, I really can say that's what it is, because I mean, what better world can I be in to work with people that want to better their community and then giving it to the nonprofits? I tell nonprofits all the time when they thank me for giving them a grant, I'm like I need to be thanking y'all for what y'all do. I didn't do anything, I'm just helping you do what you do even more. So it's a lot of fun as a job. You know, because I don't think of it as a job.
Speaker 2:So you've been doing this for a while, it sounds like since 2008. You've probably come across some misconceptions that people have about the, either about giving or about how to how to, you know work with other nonprofits. What are some of the misconceptions that you've come across?
Speaker 3:A lot of times people think my little bit of giving won't make a difference. But every little bit helps. Nonprofits are amazing with how they can take a dollar and stretch it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:To serve so many people animals, families, whatever it be that they are doing. And a lot of times, with community foundations, people think, oh well, that's only for the rich or the famous, the rich and famous. And it's not. All of us can be a part of the community foundation, just like we're a part of the community. We kind of call it community champions. Come be a community champion with us, because $25, $10, $10,000, whatever anybody can give, we will pull those resources together and make a larger impact and so everybody can be a part of giving back. And that's one thing that makes it so amazing for me working in this area is when we do hear those stories, when people say I only have $5, but I have seen what y'all have been able to do and give back that I still want to give. I know it's not much, but you'd be amazing, amazing, if all of us gave $5, what does that?
Speaker 3:come together to mean A lot more.
Speaker 2:Every dollar counts, every dollar counts.
Speaker 3:So that has been the biggest misconception on my side. But then on the other side with nonprofits. Sometimes the nonprofits feel like we in the community don't know about them or don't think about them and don't care about them. But that is so not true either. It is what they do in our we would. We wouldn't have these wonderful places we live without them.
Speaker 3:Right, that's so true, Because you know they are quietly doing the work that maybe we don't know they're doing, but the people that are receiving their services are so appreciative and for someone to actually reach out for help in a time of need takes great pride for that person to do that. And sometimes these nonprofits still make them feel like they are such a worthy person when a lot of times they feel like maybe they aren't because they haven't been able to provide for their families and they feel so lost. But they're not. We're all each other's neighbors good neighbors, that's right, Like you're saying. So we all need to keep that in mind, that every little bit of us coming together helps our communities, no matter how large or how small.
Speaker 2:Well, tell me one thing that you would like to communicate today to people about the Central Alabama Community Foundation that they may not know, or may be the most important thing you'd like to get across.
Speaker 3:That we are here to partner with the communities we serve to make them better. The local governments can't do it all to better our communities and it takes us as the citizens, as the community, to come together and we're just a part of that and we love being a part of it and seeing where we can bring value to any of the needs that might be new or still ongoing. Where can we bring value? And now that we're going into these new four counties, we're really eager to see where our services and our skill set can bring those extra resources. So that's why we're trying to meet and greet as many people as we can to say we're here, yes, what can we do?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, on that vein, how do you get in touch with you If someone's interested? Maybe they're a nonprofit didn't really realize that this was available to them or maybe someone who's in need. How do you get in touch with the Central Alabama Community Foundation?
Speaker 3:I would say just go to our website, which is cacfinfoorg. It has all our information about wherever you're located. If you are in East Alabama, we have an office in Opelika. If you're in the Wiregrass, we have an office in Dothan. We have an office here in Montgomery, where I am right now. We have offices all over. We have one phone number that'll get you to all of them.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's good yeah.
Speaker 3:You call it and whoever answers answers and we will get you. There's only a staff of five. We will have an intern come in starting in September, so we're really excited about that. But we're a small but mighty group that will get you whatever help we can. If we can't help you directly, we can get you in touch with those that can help.
Speaker 2:Well, Burton, it's been a pleasure talking to you today and learning more about what your Central Alabama Community Foundation is doing for in Alabama, but specifically for our case in Lee County. Thank you so much for being with me today.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you so much. I greatly appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, auburn. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpauburncom. That's gnpauburncom, or call 334-429-7404.