Learn About the Adams County Community Foundation

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Community Focus - Adams County Community Foundation from Community Media on Vimeo.

Adams County Community Foundation from Community Media on Vimeo.

The Adams County Community Foundation was established in October of 2007 as a Pennsylvania corporation to succeed the Adams County Foundation which for 22 years had operated as a trust-based community foundation. The Foundation is a public charity that the IRS has determined to be a 501(c)(3) organization.

The purpose of this foundation is to “inspire people and communities to build and distribute charitable funds for Good, for Adams County, for Ever.” After one year of operation, the foundation has acquired nine funds established by individual people or families, members of the Foundation’s Board of Directors, groups of business people, a local charity and by a visionary patriot from the 1700’s. The Foundation’s assets are managed by a professional investment company hired by the Board of Directors and overseen by the Foundation’s Investment & Finance Committee. From these funds, distribution of grants is made to qualified, local charities who demonstrate that they are meeting community needs. With a 16 member Board of Directors, Adams County Community Foundation serves as a good steward of the monies of our donors and demonstrates accountability, transparency, confidentiality, compassion, inclusiveness and excellence in its work.

Historically, and across the United States, community foundations offer their citizens an opportunity to become philanthropists, investing in causes they care about with certain assurances. They are assured that the fund will be permanent and will forever meet the needs that are relevant to the donor’s interests and the communities’ needs. They are assured that the Foundation will be good stewards of the funds, selecting and maintaining good fund managers at reasonable cost with performance bench marks in place. Because it is the Foundation’s responsibility to know the community, donors are also assured that only qualified charities will receive grants and that the grants they receive will be used for the good purposes for which they were intended. Finally, donors are assured that their name or the name of a loved one will live on through their fund.

Adams County Community Foundation is the successor to Adams County Foundation, an organization founded in 1985 when a group of members led by Jack Phillips inspired their Rotary Club of Gettysburg to action. Adams County Foundation operated for 22 years. During that time the Foundation acquired six (6) Funds totaling $500,000 and distributed $120,000 to Adams County charities.

Adams County Community Foundation is committed to transparency in our operations. In keeping with this commitment, the Foundation provides its 2012 filing of the 990 Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax, a public document submitted to the US Department of Treasury, IRS, each year as a record of our charitable business.

2015 Board of Directors