Welcome to the Uplift Community Foundation, Inc.

Founded in 1986, The UPLIFT Community Foundation is a nonprofit, 501 © (3), charitable and educational organization that provides grants and implements programs designed to improve the social and economic status of diverse communities.

It issues grants to support activities which will have the most positive effect on the lives of the residents in our communities while also serving the interests of each donor.  The foundation also strives to bring community leaders and others together to address social and regional challenges in an attempt to help create a better community for today and tomorrow.

What is a community foundation?  It is an organization made up of large and small charitable gifts and donations from the communities it serves.  Any individuals, businesses, corporations, or other nonprofit organizations can contribute money or in-kind contributions to a community foundation.  The foundation then invests some of these gifts and uses other income to make grants that help to strengthen our communities.

As a community foundation, Uplift’s philanthropic role is to leverage funds from national foundations, major corporations, and local and federal governments for worthy community projects.  In this way, it serves as the eyes and ears for national and local public funders that would not otherwise have the capability to evaluate small grants on a local or national level.

Uplift is supported by individual donors who contribute money to establish individual named funds or separately named endowments  to help improve the quality of life in their communities and to prepare for their future.  It also professionally manages and distributes grants from charitable gifts and bequests in a manner consistent with the donors’ specific and general interests.

Uplift has a Presidential Advisory Cabinet and Advisory Board which serves as a resource for policy, legal, and tax questions, monetary and in-kind contributions as well as experts in related disciplines.  There are more than 500 community foundations nationwide, and Uplift represents one of the more proficient segments of this group in the United States.

Uplift has extended its Outreach Development Program throughout the United States.   Its donors stretch across the country with services that are available to a wide range of communities.  However, its heaviest concentration of services and support is currently in the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. 

Our goals as a community foundation are to:

· Sponsor and implement programs that will motivate and encourage diverse groups of people to become more socially aware and financially responsible for their lives and the future of their communities.

· Support and sponsor programs that will encourage the formation of public and private partnerships, coalitions, and community networks that aid in combating some of the social and economic problems that are devastating our communities today.

·  Address health issues that affect the well being of communities by sponsoring and hosting educational and research programs.

· Serve as a facilitator for social and economic change and to foster the importance of improved communications between different races and cultures and their need to co-exist as a matter of survival.