By Jennifer Doyle, President and CEO, The Foundation for Enhancing Communities
It is powerful when people choose to invest in the place they call home.
That idea is at the heart of community foundations. The Foundation for Enhancing Communities (TFEC) and our sister organizations across the country bring together people who want to make a difference, giving them the opportunity to support the organizations doing critical work in our hometowns and create generational change.
According to the Council on Foundations’ most recent Insights survey, nearly 94% of participating community foundations saw their assets grow during the recorded year. This growth fueled an average 9% increase in grantmaking to local service organizations.
Here in South Central Pennsylvania, we see it every day.
In 2025, TFEC received 17,584 gifts totaling more than $13 million. Those charitable resources helped make 1,748 grants totaling more than $8.7 million. Through TFEC scholarship funds, both direct and those we manage, over 600 students received more than $2.2 million to continue their education.
Those numbers show the scale of community philanthropy. The impact is more personal. It is an uninsured patient receiving timely care and medication through Beacon Clinic for Health & Hope or a student like Hannah Jessep pursuing a career in music therapy with help from scholarship donors. Each story begins with someone choosing to give and creates an opportunity for someone else.
Behind every one of those numbers is a person who decided to help.
A donor created a fund because a cause mattered deeply to them. A family honored someone they loved. Others gave because they wanted students to have more opportunities or local nonprofits to have the resources they need to keep serving. Each of those choices turned generosity into action.
That is what makes the community foundation model so meaningful. We are here to help generosity take root today while also building resources that can serve our region for generations. TFEC has carried that responsibility for more than a century, connecting philanthropy with need while carefully stewarding the charitable resources entrusted to us.
Community Foundation Week, celebrated Nov. 12-18, provides an opportunity to recognize this work nationwide. Created in 1989, the week celebrates the role community foundations play in bringing people together and strengthening the places they serve.
At TFEC, it is also an opportunity to celebrate you.
Our donors, fundholders, professional advisors and nonprofit partners make this work possible. Your belief in this region continues to create opportunities and strengthen the organizations that serve our neighbors.
I hope you will join us as we celebrate Community Foundation Week and the difference people can make when they come together around a shared commitment to their community.
