CommunityFoundationAtlas.org, the world’s first comprehensive atlas of the community foundation movement, will provide an unprecedented opportunity for community foundations and community philanthropy organiza­tions worldwide to increase their visibility to a much wider audience including peers, policy makers and potential funders. An international research partnership funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is developing the online Atlas which will launch in the fall of 2014.

As part of its contribution to the 100th anniversary of the community foundation movement, the Cleveland Foundation is collaborating with the Global Fund for Community Foundations, the Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support (WINGS) and the Foundation Center to publish detailed information about the locations, resources, roles and measurable achievements of the world’s 1,700+ community foundations.

The Atlas will feature a profile of each participating community foundation, comprised of answers to a brief survey. It is expected that the creation of an easily accessible, comprehensive information resource about the community foundation movement will build a sense of solidarity among members of the field who may not be aware of the existence of many of their counterparts abroad and the similarities of their concerns and the variations in their problem solving.

Additionally, the collective responses to the survey will be professionally analyzed so that the many ways in which community foundations worldwide are making a critical difference to their societies can be compellingly presented on the Atlas. Evidence of the wide-ranging impact of the movement will focus a spotlight on individual community foundations by showcasing their contributions to the well-being of the places journalists, government officials, policy makers, potential philanthropic partners and citizen leaders call home.

Finally, the Atlas will serve as a working model of interest to an emerging trend of global collaboration to develop compatible systems and frameworks for data collection about the field.

This survey will take between 7 and 9 minutes to complete, and the information gathered will be analyzed by the UK-based Center for Research and Innovation in Social Policy and Practice (CENTRIS), which has previ­ously assisted the Global Fund and WINGS with data gathering, evaluation and knowledge manage­ment.

If you would like to complete the survey (and have not already received an email link that would allow you to do so) you can do so here. Questions can be directed to CommunityFoundationAtlas@Gmail.com