About the Foundation

The Evanston Community Foundation (ECF) is a publicly supported philanthropic organization dedicated to enriching Evanston and the lives of its people, now and in the future. The Foundation builds and manages its own and other community endowments, addresses Evanston’s changing needs through grant-making, and provides leadership on important community issues.

Vigorous and confident, ECF has grown in activities and influence in the past four years. We have done more good work than ever before, and in the difficult market years of 2000-2002l, our investment performance continued to exceed benchmarks.

Our potential is greater than ever before.

Key to realizing this potential is a full-time professional staff that is equipped to carry out the Foundation’s mission with consistent attention. Our staff partners with a board of directors dedicated to collaboration and accountability.

In important ways, we have grown up. Reflecting the foresight of our founders, we can now measure ECF’s value in terms of total support for the community. The facts speak for themselves: two grants cycles, contributions from more donor-advised and organizational endowment funds, community programs, and services such as Leadership Evanston, and workshops for other nonprofits.