Foundation simplifies name as benefits to community grow

Sometimes, less is more.

That was the feeling of the Board of Governors in voting recently to shorten the name of our region’s new public charitable foundation to the Cape Area Community Foundation.

This doesn’t change the commitment to serving Cape Girardeau, Jackson and Scott City. It just makes it easier to say and remember than the mouthful the board started with when it was founded last year.

The Cape Area Community Foundation (CACF) is an affiliate of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks, which serves a large region of the state south of the Missouri River. The CFO and its 49 affiliate foundations are dedicated to improving communities through charitable asset and resource development, collaboration and public leadership.

The CACF is participating in several programs available to CFO affiliates. In April, the CACF held a “Fundraising Institute” at Cape Public Library, presented by CFO staff members Michael Chatman, Carol Silvey and Moe Sandfort, who serves the Cape area communities as the Senior Advisor of Philanthropy-East Region. About 35 nonprofit agency staff members and volunteers learned more about proven methods of fundraising. Sandfort also has presented a program to several service clubs in recent months on Missouri’s Transfer of Wealth study, which outlines the tremendous amount of wealth shifting from members of the Greatest Generation to Baby Boomers and beyond in Missouri and across the nation.

Nonprofit agency partners are one of the core constituencies for the CFO, along with donors and the affiliate network. By establishing charitable funds through the CACF, nonprofit agencies can use the CFO’s administrative and investment services and also take advantage of its educational and training opportunities. So far, the CACF has developed several Agency Partner relationships, including the Cape Girardeau Public School Foundation, which includes several scholarship funds, Cape CASA, the Humane Society of Southeast Missouri and the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts.

One of the most important and visible roles of the foundation will be its community grantmaking program. The CACF is proud to announce that it will offer its first community grants this fall. More details will be announced when the application period opens.

For questions about the CACF, contact any of the Cape Area Board members or Moe Sandfort at the local office, 2023 State Highway W in Cape, or via email: at msandfort@cfozarks.org.