Milestones: A Brief History of Canada's Community Foundations;

www.community-fdn.ca/index.cfm

1914

• The first community foundation is started in Cleveland, Ohio. The idea started with Fredrick Harris Goff, a Cleveland banker and attorney, who wanted to create a community-oriented foundation where charitable individuals could establish permanent funds that would distribute grants for the betterment of the community.

1921

• Canada's first community foundation is established in Winnipeg, Man. Today it is the second-largest community foundation in Canada and there are more than 140 community foundations in Canada, located in every province and one territory.

1945

• Vancouver Foundation is established after a secretary's wish to help her city inspires a local industrialist and philanthropist. After secretary Alice G. MacKay set aside $1,000 of her salary to help homeless women, W.J. VanDusen made her wish come true by donating $10,000 of his funds and encouraging nine friends to do the same. Today, Vancouver Foundation is Canada's largest community foundation and the fifth largest in North America.

1954

• Ontario and the Atlantic Provinces join the community foundation movement. Hamilton and Fredericton establish the first community foundations in Ontario and New Brunswick, respectively.

1955

• The Calgary Foundation becomes the first community foundation in Alberta. Today, it is among the largest in Canada and is one of more than 10 community foundations in Alberta.

1969

• Regina establishes the South Saskatchewan Community Foundation, the first foundation of its kind in Saskatchewan. Today community foundations also serve Saskatoon, Langenburg, and Prince Albert and the surrounding area.

1990

• The Community Foundation of Ottawa hosts the first national conference for Canada's 32 community foundations. The meeting is convened by John Crow, Governor of the Bank of Canada and the group unanimously decides to create a national membership organization for the country's growing community foundation movement.

1992

• Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) is officially founded at the second national conference for Canadian community foundations in Winnipeg. At the time, there are 56 community foundations across the country, with assets of almost half a billion dollars. CFC is created to provide a national network for the growing movement. Today, it is a respected leader on the national and international philanthropic scene.

1994

• Quebec joins the community foundation movement with the establishment of the Fondation communautaire du grand Québec. Today there are five community foundations in Quebec, including one in Montréal and another serving Gaspésie-Les Îles.

1998

• The federal government introduces a tax change that cuts in half the capital gains on gifts of publicly traded securities. The community foundation movement immediately reaps the rewards, receiving $5 million donations in Edmonton and Calgary.

• Canada's community foundations reach a combined $1 billion in assets. There are 81 community foundations across the country at the time.

• Vancouver Foundation founds Canada's first Youth in Philanthropy program. This effort to involve young people in their communities and philanthropy quickly becomes a model for community foundations across Canada and the world. Today, more than 40 Canadian community foundations have a Youth in Philanthropy program run by youth who build permanent endowments to provide grants to worthy youth causes.

1999

• Community Foundations of Canada launches Our Millennium. The national grassroots project is an ambitious undertaking that invites Canadians to give a gift to their community to mark the beginning of the new millennium. When the program ends on Dec. 31, 2000, more than 4.6 million Canadians from 800 communities have participated.

2000

• Canada's community foundations donate first website to be preserved by the National Archives of Canada. Our Millennium's on-line gift registry, the website where Canadians recorded more than 6,500 personal millennium projects, becomes the first Internet memory to be acquired by Canada's National Archives.

• Thanks to the high-tech boom, community foundations celebrate a record-breaking year, receiving $185 million in donations. Two particularly generous high-tech stock donations hit the front pages: $12 million from two former software engineers (The Kitchener-Waterloo Community Foundation) and $40 million from the aunt of the founder of Red Hat Inc. (The Hamilton Community Foundation).

• Community Foundations of Canada spearheads the creation of WINGS-CF, a global network of community foundation support organizations. The network helps organizations link with peers in other countries including Poland, Russia, the Philippines, Latvia, the United States, India, Mexico, South Africa, Australia and Germany.

2001

• Randall Moffat, former president of Moffat Communications, announces the largest gift ever given to a Canadian community foundation. Just three weeks before Christmas, Mr. Moffat announces a $100 million gift to The Winnipeg Foundation to benefit children and families in the communities where Moffat Communications did business.

2002

• Canada's community foundation movement celebrates a decade of spectacular growth by holding its largest conference ever. More than 450 staff and volunteers attend (from more than 120 community foundations). The movement's growing success attracts global participants from the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, India, Nepal, Russia and South Africa.

• One year after the horrific events of September 11, Hamilton, Ont. receives national media attention for its inspiring, community-wide effort to combat racism. The Hamilton Community Foundation was one of several groups credited with bringing more than 70 organizations together to commit time, money and other resources to a three-year project to build a stronger, safer and more harmonious Hamilton.

• Working in conjunction with United Way of Canada – Centraide Canada and the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations, CFC launches Developing Human Resources in the Voluntary Sector (HRVS), a project that aims to help voluntary sector organizations attract, support and keep skilled and committed employees. The HRVS website (http://www.hrvs.ca/) provides practical HR tools and information to non-profits across the country. Within a year the site is logging 14,000 visitors a month.

2003

• Randall Moffat, former president of Moffat Communications, announces the largest gift ever given to a Canadian community foundation. Just three weeks before Christmas, Mr. Moffat announces a $100 million gift to The Winnipeg Foundation to benefit children and families in the communities where Moffat Communications did business.

• Community Foundations of Canada and Bank of Montreal Financial Group launch Supporting Your Community, the first program of its kind in Canada. It is the first collaboration between a major Canadian financial institution and the country's network of community foundations and it invites Canadian donors to create a charitable fund at their local community foundation through the BMO investment professional.

• For the first time ever, CFC markets and sells its high-quality CF-LINKS professional development materials to international buyers including foundations in Scotland and the United States.

• The WINGS-CF Secretariat leaves its first home at Community Foundations of Canada and is successfully transferred to Brussels. The Secretariat, which is designed to rotate locations every three years, leaves CFC with its own website and a well-known report on the international growth of the community foundation movement.

2004

• As the community foundation movement begins to grow in Quebec, CFC holds its national biennial conference in La Belle Province for the first time. More than 500 delegates attend the conference in Canada's most European city, along with record numbers of international participants.

• GrantBenefit.org is launched by CFC to help foundations and other funders demonstrate the impact of their grantmaking. The web manual, developed in consultation with community foundations, Philanthropic Foundations of Canada, The Muttart Foundation, the Ontario Trillium Foundation and other funders, provides guidance, tools and resources for funders to assess the benefit of their grant making.

• Canada's community foundation movement receives international recognition at a gathering of community foundations from around the globe in Berlin, Germany. Ten representatives from the Canadian movement are selected to attend Community Foundations: Symposium on a global movement, an event organized to explore the role of community foundations and their impact, worldwide.