Most of the work that strengthens a community doesn’t happen in one place or through one organization. It happens when a nonprofit finally has the funding to expand a program, when a student receives a scholarship, when a local business decides to invest in the community it serves, or when someone who wants to give back discovers an organization doing work they care deeply about.
Sometimes it happens in ways that are even harder to see. Someone recognizes that two people should know each other and makes an introduction. A nonprofit leader shares a need in conversation, and months later the right resource finds its way to that organization. A donor has the desire to make a difference but isn’t sure where to begin, and someone helps them understand the possibilities.
Behind many of those moments throughout Southern Arizona is the Greater Green Valley Community Foundation, an organization that has spent more than 50 years helping connect generosity with community need. And today, Executive Director Michelle Phillips is helping lead the Foundation into its next chapter, alongside staff, board members, volunteers, donors, businesses and nonprofit partners who make that work possible.
The Work Behind the Work
A community foundation occupies an interesting place in the life of a region because it has the opportunity to see needs, resources and relationships from several different perspectives at once.
On any given day, Michelle may be talking with a nonprofit leader about a challenge facing the people they serve, meeting with a donor who wants to make a meaningful gift, working with a business interested in becoming more involved locally, coordinating with the Foundation’s board or planning an initiative designed to bring greater attention to organizations doing important work throughout the region.
There are grants and scholarships to administer, charitable funds to steward, partnerships to develop and events to organize. There are also countless conversations that may never appear in an annual report but can ultimately lead to funding, collaboration, visibility or an entirely new opportunity for an organization.
Michelle doesn’t do any of that alone. Julie, the Foundation’s board members and volunteers each bring their own knowledge, relationships and talents to the work. Donors, businesses, nonprofit leaders and community partners are equally important participants. A community foundation, by its very nature, works because a community participates in it.
Michelle’s leadership is often about helping those pieces find one another.
More Than Grantmaking
Since 1970, the Greater Green Valley Community Foundation has helped strengthen Southern Arizona through philanthropy, charitable funds, grants, scholarships, nonprofit partnerships and community initiatives. Over those decades, millions of dollars have been invested back into the people and places that make this region home.
Those dollars have helped nonprofit organizations provide health and human services, care for animals, support children and families, expand educational opportunities, protect the environment and bring arts and cultural experiences into our communities.
The financial impact is significant, but it tells only part of the story.
A community foundation can also help a nonprofit become more visible, introduce a donor to an organization they never knew existed or help a local business find a meaningful way to invest in its community. It can connect a volunteer with an organization that needs exactly the skills that person has to offer, or help a family think more intentionally about the charitable legacy they want to leave behind.
Those outcomes are more difficult to measure than dollars awarded, but they are part of the Foundation’s impact because strong communities depend not only on resources, but on relationships.
Leadership That Begins With Listening
One of the most important parts of Michelle’s role is also one of the simplest: listening to the people who live and work throughout the communities the Foundation serves.
That matters because Southern Arizona is not one homogeneous community. Green Valley has its own needs and character, as do Sahuarita, Amado, Arivaca, Tubac, Tumacacori, Rio Rico and Nogales. Organizations working directly within those communities understand challenges and opportunities that may not be immediately visible to someone outside them.
Effective philanthropy therefore requires more than deciding where money should go. It requires understanding what is already happening, who is doing the work, where gaps exist and where additional resources or relationships could make a meaningful difference.
That approach has helped expand the Foundation’s role beyond grantmaking alone. Under Michelle’s leadership, the Foundation is continuing to grow as a connector among donors, nonprofits, businesses and community leaders, while helping more people understand the many different ways they can participate in strengthening the region.
Helping Good Work Become More Visible
One challenge facing many local nonprofits has very little to do with the quality of their work. Quite simply, not enough people know they exist.
Throughout Southern Arizona, organizations are doing extraordinary things with small staffs, volunteer boards, limited marketing budgets and very little time to tell their own stories. At the same time, there are residents, businesses and donors actively looking for meaningful ways to contribute.
The problem is not always a lack of generosity. Sometimes it is a lack of connection between the people who want to help and the organizations that could put that help to work.
That understanding is part of what has shaped Shine Forward Southern Arizona, the Foundation’s year-round initiative designed to help people discover local nonprofits, volunteer opportunities and causes that align with their values. Its annual November campaign builds on that work by bringing additional attention to participating organizations and encouraging people to give money, time or talent while keeping generosity local.
The idea is intentionally accessible. Someone doesn’t have to understand philanthropy or already know which organization they want to support. They can begin by learning about the work happening around them, discovering what matters to them and finding a way to participate.
The Ripple Effect of a Connection
Perhaps one of the most interesting things about the Foundation’s work is that its impact rarely stops with the first connection.
A donor discovers a nonprofit and decides to support it. That support strengthens a program, which allows the organization to serve more people. A business sponsors an initiative and develops a deeper relationship with the nonprofit community. A volunteer brings professional experience to an organization that could never afford to hire for that expertise. Two nonprofit leaders meet and discover that they can solve a problem more effectively together than either could alone.
One connection creates the possibility of another, and the effects can continue moving through a community long after the original introduction was made.
The Foundation sits in a unique position because it can see many of those possibilities at once. Michelle, Julie, the board and the volunteers who support the organization can hear what nonprofits are experiencing while also understanding what donors and businesses are looking for. That vantage point creates opportunities to connect people and resources in ways that might not otherwise happen.
Generosity Is Bigger Than Money
When we talk about philanthropy, it is easy to focus almost entirely on money. Financial support matters enormously because nonprofit organizations cannot operate on goodwill alone. Yet generosity has never been limited to writing a check.
People give their time and expertise. Businesses provide resources, sponsorships and connections. Volunteers serve on boards, organize events and show up week after week. Nonprofit professionals devote their careers to solving difficult problems and caring for the people, animals, places and causes that matter to our communities.
The Foundation’s role is to help those different forms of generosity become useful, connected and sustainable.
That is the work Michelle is leading today, with Julie, the Foundation’s board, volunteers and community partners beside her. It is work built on relationships rather than any one person, which may be exactly why strong leadership matters so much. Someone has to keep listening, keep seeing the connections and keep bringing people to the same table.
More than 50 years after the Greater Green Valley Community Foundation began, the tools and opportunities for giving may have changed, but the heart of the work remains remarkably consistent. It is about helping people who care about this region find meaningful ways to strengthen it.
Sometimes that means funding a grant or scholarship. Sometimes it means helping a nonprofit become known. Sometimes it means introducing two people who should have met years ago.
And sometimes the most important contribution a foundation can make is creating the place where generosity, leadership and community need finally find one another.
Because when they do, generosity becomes community impact.
Greater Green Valley Community Foundation
Connecting people, generosity and community impact throughout Southern Arizona.
