“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.
Think Circular – community foundations and circular economy
This report explores how community foundations engage with the circular economy by supporting local initiatives that reduce waste, reuse resources, and strengthen community resilience. Drawing on examples such as repair hubs, community gardens, and reuse projects, it highlights the role of partnerships, citizen engagement, and local action in addressing climate and sustainability challenges. It positions community foundations as key actors in connecting environmental goals with place-based action.
Seeing Our Work Differently Through SDG Lenses: The experience of Siegen Community Foundation
This blog describes how Siegen Community Foundation began embedding the Sustainable Development Goals across its work following participation in the SDG Wake-Up Call workshops. It explains how the foundation uses an SDG lens to review supported projects, strengthen communications, develop partnerships and guide organisational changes. The article also highlights plans for more sustainable operations, an ESG-aligned investment policy and the importance of board support when adopting a whole-of-organisation approach
The New Italian Kid on the Block
This blog introduces Fondazione Comunità di Benevento, the ninth community foundation established in southern Italy. Through an interview with its chairman, it traces how cooperation around disability support, flood response and social capital led to the foundation’s creation. The article also explains its participatory governance model and its ambition to strengthen community welfare, civic engagement and inclusive local development, with current priorities including health poverty, education, climate action and the circular economy.
How to use marketing tools to encourage business to be involved in social activities based on the Sustainable Development Goals
This publication explores how community foundations can use marketing tools to communicate their work through the lens of the SDGs. It highlights practical approaches such as storytelling, visual identity, and campaign design to make local impact more visible and relatable. By aligning communication strategies with global frameworks, foundations can strengthen their positioning, engage broader audiences, and attract new partners and donors while keeping their work rooted in local realities.
From SDG Talk to Action
This publication explores how community foundations across Europe are integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into every aspect of their work through a whole-of-organisation approach. It documents ECFI’s collaboration with national support organisations to deliver SDG workshops, examines their impact on community foundations, identifies common challenges and good practices, and presents case studies from across Europe demonstrating how the SDGs can strengthen community leadership, strategy, communications, investment, and organisational development.
Impact Funds: A foundation for greater social impact
This article explores how Foundation Scotland aligned its investment strategy with its mission by introducing impact investing. It describes the transition from traditional endowment management to an SDG-informed investment approach, demonstrating how community foundations can generate financial returns while creating measurable social and environmental impact, strengthening donor engagement and inspiring similar changes across the wider community foundation network.
Community foundations through and beyond the Covid-19 crisis
Summary and visual harvesting of the presentations and discussion on the challenges and lessons from the establishment and implementation of Covid-19 crisis response and recovery funds – reflects on actions through a 4Cs lens, and sets out proposed next steps
Mission-related investment underpins sustainable urban development in Freiburg/Germany
This case highlights how a community foundation in Freiburg integrates sustainability into all aspects of its work, from investment decisions to everyday operations and local projects. It shows how mission-related investment and practical, community-based initiatives can reinforce social, ecological, and economic goals at the local level.
