About Certification: Defining Community Foundations

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NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR U.S. COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS (developed by the Council on Foundations)

Definition of a U.S. Community Foundation

A. A community foundation is a tax-exempt, nonprofit, autonomous, publicly supported, nonsectarian philanthropic institution with a long term goal of building permanent, named component funds established by many separate donors for the broad-based charitable benefit of the residents of a defined geographic area, typically no larger than a state.

Community foundations are further defined by the following characteristics:

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