Karen Snow, co-president of the Giving Circle of Alexandria, shares that they’ve donated over $350,000 to their community over the past 6 years. They focus specifically on issues promoting parental engagement and over the past 5 years have helped many local organization become self-sufficient. They are now entering a new phase and hoping to develop a “Playground in a Box” model.
Karen shared a lot of information about their grant structure. They do two types of gifts. Priority gifts are donations over $5,000. These are voted on by the board and are designed for long-term projects. Developmental gifts are less than $5,000 and are voted on by the entire membership. This interesting structure lets them benefit from the strengths of a large gift model with intense review process and the small gift model that encourages participation from everyone.
Listen to this informative interview to find out more.
Location: Alexandria, VA
Founded: 2004
Members: 130
Website: givingfullcircle.org
Interview length: 29:30
Clicking on the interview will play the audio in your browser, or you can right click to download the mp3 to your computer: Giving Circle of Alexandria
Has your giving circle made a big change in its activities?