Building Agency, Belonging and Local Power Through Sport
Sport can be a powerful catalyst for individual and local development, and an effective lever for addressing complex community challenges. Across Europe, community foundations are investing in sport and sporting facilities as a strategy for strengthen individuals’ agency, particularly among young people, while fostering community building, and participation.
Youth Involvement and Best Practices Exchange learning – P2P Exchange
This report outlines the highlights and the main lessons learned on youth participation and involvement by Mirafiori Community Foundation (Italy) and Local Community Development Foundation, Štip (North Macedonia) within the ECFI P2P Exchange program.
Looking Back at 2025: What did this year ask of ECFI and the field?
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.
Re-thinking Approaches to Community Foundations Movement Building in the Balkans
Re-thinking approaches to community foundation movement building in the Balkans presents the synthesis of a multi-country action research initiative led by ECFI and partner support organisations in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Serbia. The report examines how community foundations are developing under conditions of political pressure, donor dependency, and shrinking civic space. Using the 4Cs framework—capacity, capability, credibility, and connections—it identifies key paradoxes of fragility and resilience, and offers strategic recommendations for consolidating existing foundations, strengthening support organisations, and building a sustainable, trust-based regional movement.
Balkan Re-think Action Research. National research reports
The Re-think National Research Reports – Annex complements the Balkan Re-think synthesis by providing detailed country-level analyses from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Drawing on interviews, desk research, and practitioner insights, the annex explores how community foundations and support organisations navigate fragile civic environments, donor dependency, and limited capacity. It captures national specificities while reinforcing shared patterns around trust-building, local legitimacy, and the critical role of long-term support in transforming emerging initiatives into sustainable community-based institutions.
“Lleida Alimenta: A territorial agrifood movement strengthening community resilience”
In this article, Elena De Carandini, President of Raimat Lleida Community Foundation, shares the community foundation’s role in setting up, convening and lead a participatory initiative, Lleida Alimenta, a territorial agrifood movement strengthening community resilience.
Impact Investing – from a symbol of the past to a place maker for the future
Officina Badoni offers a compelling example of how a community foundation can redefine impact investing by transforming a disused industrial landmark into an open, collaborative civic hub. The Fondazione Comunitaria del Lecchese chose to invest a quarter of its endowment not for financial return, but to regenerate a shared space where young people, organisations and citizens can work, connect and imagine new futures together. Through a co-design process involving local actors, the building has become a platform for social innovation rather than a real-estate project, already fostering new partnerships, daily community use and a shift in how the Foundation relates to its territory. Ultimately, Officina Badoni shows how investing in places can strengthen community life, turning an “asset question” into a “community question” where the real value lies in people and relationships.
ECFI Youth Fest 2025: A laboratory of ideas, relationships, and intentional actions
From 27th to 29th October 2025, ECFI brought together 55 people from across Europe, mostly under 35 years old, for the second edition of the ECFI Youth Fest, hosted by the Fondazione di Comunità San Gennaro in Naples, in collaboration with Assifero. This report sums up the insights and ideas emerged.
Strengthening democratic resilience from the ground up: reflections from ECFI’s Resilience Deep Dive for Community Foundation Leaders
In October 2025, the European Community Foundation Initiative (ECFI) brought together community foundation leaders from across Europe for a Resilience Deep Dive in San Sebastiano da Po, Italy. Over three days, participants explored what resilience means for communities, for organisations, and for themselves as individuals. At a time when democratic resilience is being tested across Europe, and its fault lines are increasingly visible at the local level, the conversations quickly moved beyond theory, drawing on lived experience, peer learning, and honest
exchange. Reflections that follow capture the overarching themes and shared insights that emerged.
Transformation in funding practice – listening, learning, and acting
In 2019, Community Foundation Wales initiated a community consultation process to better understand the needs of its grantees. The results were strikingly consistent: the main concern was short-term, project-related funding, which prevented them from focusing on and delivering their mission. The foundation responded swiftly by reviewing its funding strategy to include support for core costs and for multi-year funding. In this interview, Andrea Powell, Director of Programmes (and Deputy Chief Executive), shares the organisation’s journey, the challenges it has faced, and the opportunities ahead.
