Dear friends,
The Community Foundation of Utah enters our fifth year with excitement and incredible gratitude to you, who have given so generously of your time and resources in our collective effort to engage, preserve and transform our State’s most valuable human and natural resources -- for good and forever.
Our mission is to harness Utah’s entrepreneurial spirit in service to the common good through smart philanthropy. With these words as a guide, we focus on points of transformation. We encourage the entrepreneurial efforts of our state’s nonprofits, transforming their long term sustainability and the self sufficiency of the people they serve. Our Chautauqua create a place for civil and civic dialogue, transforming our understanding of complex issues and perspectives. Our scholarships transform the future for promising students.
Our dedication to ‘smart philanthropy’ means your voice is a powerful guide for our work. You have encouraged the Community Foundation to focus where we both can create the greatest impact, together.
Utahns are known for their resourcefulness. We have an innate ability to envision what could be within what currently exists. We strive to transform our immediate environment into something more productive, and more thoughtful. We can see the possibilities a new idea, a promising student, a fledgling enterprise and the people who have come to Utah to make a new home. We are also grounded in our heritage and history. We cherish our relationship with the natural world, and work to preserve the vitality of the places and institutions that make Utah great.
The mission of the Community Foundation of Utah is to harness our entrepreneurial spirit in service to the common good through smart philanthropy. We welcome your participation and need your energy. You see, we believe in the wisdom of crowds. Our success will depend on the participation and endorsement of a diverse group of independent minded Utahns. Not perpetuating the current approaches without challenge, but a blend of experiences and perspectives, through a process of disagreement, contest and debate that will reveal a more expansive set of alternative solutions to our problems.
We invite you to join us on this journey of change. Donate your best critical thinking; your best ideas. Introduce these ideas to others who might be thinking philanthropically. Tell us of the opportunities and obstacles you see before us. Join us in thinking big, in challenging ourselves. Join us in something difficult yet worthwhile. Join us in working to preserve Utah for future generations.
Greg Warnock, Founding Chair of the Board of Trustees
