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Community Foundations
Over the last decade, community foundations were among the fastest growing type of foundations around the world. The concept originally developed in United States and Canada proved highly adaptable to a variety of local conditions in developing and less affluent societies. Today, CFs exist in about 35 countries on six regions (Africa, North and South America, Europe, Asia and Australia & Pacific).
Six basic criteria define community foundations:
(i) grantmaking;
(ii) fund-raising (both local and external to community);
(iii) broadly defined vision;
(iv) local board of trustees reflective of community;
(v) serving geographically defined community;
(vi) building endowment.
Community Foundations in various countries and communities design and use a variety of creative approaches to support citizen-led development efforts and mobilize a variety of local as well as external resources to sustain community dynamism. Local political, social, and economic conditions affect the mix of approaches used.
The Community Foundation Initiative (CFI) was launched in March 2003 by the World Bank, jointly with foundations partners (especially Ford and Mott). CFI is hosted by the Community Driven Development team, where it explores how CFs could contribute to long-term sustainability of CDD projects.
Two basic goals of the CFI are to educate WB staff about the concept and potential contribution of CFs to development, and to identify and develop several WB pilot projects in various regions of the world that would demonstrate modalities of integrating CFs in CDD and other relevant World Bank operations.
Despite very fast growth of CFs around the world over the last decade, we do not assume that CFs can develop in any conditions and in every country. Among the existing WB's instruments that could be used for CF pilot projects, Social Investment Funds and other types of CDD projects are considered useful entry points because they deal with similar themes and try to leverage local resources with other more external resources. The Bank's work on Corporate Social Responsibility also provides a possible entry point through the harnessing of corporate investment in localities to the benefit of the local communities.
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