The Community Foundation of Whistler (CFOW) was founded in 1999 to be an independent, charitable organization dedicated to improving the quality of community life in the Sea to Sky Corridor. The CFOW has hired professional managers to manage over C$2.7 million dollars in donor funds. The CFOW oversees this and distributes the income to registered charities for community projects.
The CFOW belongs to Community Foundations of Canada, a group of over 154 Foundations across Canada. The CFOW Vision is to provide dedicated philanthropic leadership and resources, in perpetuity, to the Sea to Sky Communities –
A Gift Forever to Your Community!
CFOW is a catalyst for improving quality of community life by:
Providing philanthropic leadership by responding to changing community needs and challenges;
Serving as a vehicle for generous citizens and corporations that want to contribute to the community, by attracting and managing charitable gifts mainly cash, pledges, bequests, memorials and proceeds from life insurance; and,
investing donations prudently and using earnings to make creative grants alone, or in partnership with others, to qualified recipients involved with charitable activities.
Since its inception, the CFOW has made over C$235,000 in grants to a wide variety of charitable organizations in Whistler and the Sea to Sky Corridor, including charities that the AFOW has also supported directly. From a community leadership perspective, the CFOW has convened non–profit groups in Whistler and throughout the corridor, including a virtual library and speaker series.
In 2004, the AFOW became a Founding Member of Community Foundation of Whistler with a $5,000 commitment to commence a permanent endowment fund specifically for the Whistler community. The Community Foundation of Whistler recently received a donation of $65,000 to establish a new Arts and Culture Legacy Fund (from a source other than the AFOW). In late 2005, the AFOW approved a one–time $5,000 grant to the Whistler Arts and Culture Legacy Fund (WACLF). The timing of AFOW’s grant enabled the WACLF to obtain matching funds from each of the federal and BC provincial governments for a combined 3:1 ratio.
The AFOW prefers to make grants directly to charitable groups for specific purposes determined by the AFOW, and not grants to broader community funds (that pool and then allocate funds themselves). But in this instance, the AFOW supported the end–purposes of the Arts and Culture Legacy Fund and the AFOW wished to support the WACLF’s opportunity to obtain matching funds from both governments.
The mission of the AFOW is to raise and distribute funds to support health and human services, arts and culture, and environmental protection, primarily in the Whistler community. The AFOW Board of Directors felt that this donation to the WACLF was an opportunity to support the long–term interest of the arts in Whistler.
For more information about the Community Foundation of Whistler visit http://www.WhistlerFoundation.com.
American Friends of Whistler 