With an eventful, exciting but also challenging year coming to an end, it’s a good moment to reflect on what this year has asked of the community foundation field, and of ECFI, which exists to support it. In a context of growing pressure on civil society and community foundations, our work this year has been shaped by listening closely, hosting moments of connection and responding alongside our partners. This reflection brings together some of the key themes that emerged from that shared experience.
A growing field, even in uncertain times
One of the clearest takeaways from this year is how much the community foundation field continues to evolve. Fifty years after the community foundation model first arrived in Europe (and happy anniversary to Wiltshire Community Foundation!), new foundations are still emerging, even in a difficult environment. This year alone, 23 new community foundations were created in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Serbia and Spain.
In other places, the picture looks different but no less encouraging. In Romania, for example, the number of community foundations has decreased on paper, while existing organisations have expanded their geographic reach with the aim of ensuring broader national coverage. In Portugal, existing CSOs and foundations are adopting the CF model, attracted by the place-based and long-term orientation and their emphasis on community ownership and participatory governance. Meanwhile, initiative groups are being nurtured in the Balkans, Austria and beyond, laying the groundwork for future growth.
Beyond the community foundation field itself, more philanthropic actors are recognising the value of local, community-led and bottom-up approaches to today’s challenges. This creates a window of opportunity to position community foundations as vital partners that bring local knowledge, long-term relationships, staying power, and both material and immaterial assets needed to support lasting change.
Solidarity during a difficult year
There is no pretending that this has been an easy year for civil society, including community foundations. Funding cuts, including the withdrawal of USAID support, shrinking civic space, and increasingly hostile regulatory environments have taken a real toll. Many of our partners are operating under intense pressure, often with fewer resources and greater scrutiny. The war in Ukraine remains a constant reminder of Europe’s fragility, and we continue to be humbled by our Ukrainian colleagues who keep showing up for their communities despite exhaustion, trauma and ongoing uncertainty.
At the same time, the sense of solidarity across the field has felt stronger than ever. We have seen it in small but meaningful ways, through informal check-ins and words of empathy and encouragement during the bi-monthly CFSO picnics we host, and in the openness and generosity that characterised this year’s annual CFSO meeting in Vienna.
Solidarity is also at the heart of the newly formed Community Foundation Movement Leadership Peer Group, which convened for the first time in 2025. Larger and more established foundations are stepping into a thought leadership role of active support for the wider field, recognising that resilience is something we build together.
Even in a difficult year, there has been a strong sense of connection. We have each other’s backs, and we remain part of a European movement grounded in shared values and a shared commitment to our communities.
Democratic backsliding is real, and community foundations see it first
Throughout the year, the same concerns surfaced repeatedly in our conversations with community foundations and support organisations. People feel less heard and increasingly deprived of agency. Trust in democracy and public institutions is weakening, and polarisation is playing out in visible and ugly ways in neighbourhoods, schools, community centres and local politics.
This is not an abstract policy debate – it is a lived experience. Our work depends on functioning local democratic cultures and civic engagement. That requires people to feel included, respected and able to participate. This is where community foundations have an important role to play, by protecting and promoting local spaces for creativity, connection and genuine dialogue.
Community foundations are well placed to support democratic renewal from the ground up. They can facilitate dialogue in polarised communities, invest in physical “third spaces” that enable human connection across difference, and experiment with ways to counter local sources of misinformation and disinformation that fuel fear and distrust. At ECFI, democratic resilience will remain a central focus of our work with community foundations and their supporters in the year ahead.
Hope, energy and agency
Despite everything, this year offered many reminders of where renewal comes from. The ECFI Youth Fest in Naples was one of the clearest examples. The energy, curiosity and confidence of the young people there are a powerful sign for the future of the field, and in 2026 ECFI will continue to champion conversations on youth engagement and leadership transition.
That same energy and determination were evident during our study visit to Hungary, where commitment to community persists despite strong political headwinds. These contexts offer important lessons in resilience, staying the course and the power of local acts of resistance. A challenging operating environment, compounded by cuts in foreign aid, also prompted us to secure resources for an Action Research project involving five Balkan countries. The project aimed to assess and rethink approaches to community foundation development in the region.
Staying determined means choosing engagement over withdrawal and action over paralysis. Agency has emerged as a leitmotif in our work on the role of community foundations in systems change. Increasingly, foundations are stepping beyond grantmaking to convene, connect and help communities shape their own responses to structural challenges.
This focus on agency also connects closely to our work on foresight. In a world shaped by rapid and overlapping change, from climate disruption to rising inequality, traditional reactive approaches are no longer enough. Foresight helps community foundations move from short-term responses to more anticipatory, long-term action. For place-based funders, it offers a way to imagine alternative futures together with communities, identify emerging local risks and opportunities early, and build strategies that strengthen resilience in the face of both global and local shifts.
For ECFI, using foresight methods is about staying innovative, relevant and impactful, and about nurturing a more future-oriented mindset across the community foundation field. This feels like an important investment in resilience.
ECFI at 10: what this milestone means
Marking ECFI’s 10th anniversary this year has offered a moment to pause and take stock. Over the past decade, the community foundation field has grown and become more connected, and ECFI has grown with it.
Today, ECFI is deeply embedded in the field. We work as a partner and connector, listening closely and increasingly supporting shared thinking on issues such as democratic resilience, youth leadership, emergency preparedness and climate action.
For me, my first year as ECFI’s Coordinating Director has been personally formative, shaped in no small way by the care, competence and dedication of the ECFI team. The more time I spend with community foundations, the more I appreciate the quiet, steady nature of their work and the role it plays in sustaining communities across Europe.
Looking ahead to 2026, there is much we cannot predict. What we do know is that communities will continue to face pressure, and community foundations will continue to be asked to respond. My hope is that we keep meeting these challenges together, with care, openness and a strong sense of shared responsibility.
Thank you to our partners, funders and allies, and to the more than 800 European community foundations, for everything you have contributed this year: your time, resources, honesty, commitment to your communities, and your willingness to keep showing up.
With warm wishes for a peaceful holiday season and a hopeful start to the new year, from all of us at ECFI.
