What We Do: Making an Impact
Our philosophy is simple: You can make a world of difference in your own backyard.Personalized Service
Working with you and your professional advisor, we provide solutions to create a customized charitable fund that speaks to your heart. Philanthropy is deeply personal and your giving needs to reflect you and your values—we have the expertise to help craft a fund that is unique to you.
- We can strengthen and inform your philanthropy—we’ll help you find the perfect nonprofit to suit your giving or help you collaborate with others to bring more impact to your giving.
- We offer a variety of funds to help achieve your philanthropic goals. Funds can be created in your lifetime or through your estate plan. With careful planning we can help you maximize tax advantages and giving impact.
- Generally, we manage the endowed funds entrusted to us. But if you have a financial advisor you want to work with, your Placer Community Foundation fund can remain under their advisement.
Grantmaking
Our grantmaking has touched nearly every corner of Placer County and beyond. Local nonprofits apply for funds in six community impact areas: Animals & Environment, Arts & Humanities, Community Development, Children & Youth, Health & Human Services and Education. PCF staff review requests and share them with fundholders who wish to consider projects in their areas of interest.
Each year, approximately $1M in grants are awarded by PCF to nonprofits. Our donors give to charities locally and globally through their donor advised funds held at the Foundation. Would you like to see which organizations we funded last year? Click here to see Placer Community Foundation’s most recent Annual Report.
Community Leadership
More than just a grantmaker, we are a resource, a convener, and a catalyst. We help strengthen the capacity of local organizations to better meet changing environments. Networking and learning are great ways to create connections, improve professional skills, and build a better community. Placer Community Foundation offers a number of programs that allow organizations and community members to come together and develop the skills and connections they need to succeed and make our communities stronger.
Nonprofits teach our children, train our future workforce, heal us, entertain and inspire us, preserve our natural spaces and help those in need of social services. Placer Community Foundation’s support is a salute to their impact on improving the quality of life for us all.
The generous individuals, families and businesses who establish funds with us recommend more than 75% of the dollars we give away each year. Their funds grow through investment and through contributions from others in the community who want to make a difference.
The Foundation is designed to make giving easy and effective. Your gift helps create better lives in your community. We can help make it happen.
As a promise of our commitment to excellence and accountability, we meet the most rigorous standards in philanthropy. Our accreditation by the Council on Foundations provides assurance that we have sound policies and practices in place.
