The Balancing Act - Community Foundation as a Grantmaker, by Dorothy Reynolds

This monogram, which was published by the Mott Foundation last year and is available through their website, argues that good grant making is a good asset development tool.  One feeds the other.  As community foundations grow and mature, they must address the work of assessing community needs, deciding what they care about, and setting grant making priorities. While awarding grants is so much more pleasant than fundraising, unrestricted asset development is KEY to the future growth of the community foundation. The author makes a great point that grant making should never distract the foundation from its unrestricted fundraising activities.

Dorothy Reynolds encourages us not to fret about the size of our assets or reduced endowment values, but to primarily focus on what is possible. What niche can we fill with the assets we already have.