Press Releases

(January 19, 2021, Oakton, VA) - The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia is accepting applications for college scholarships for the 2021 – 2022 school year. Eligible students include high school seniors, undergraduates, and graduate students in Northern Virginia.

Community Foundation manages twelve scholarships and administers the funds for 18 other scholarships that support Northern Virginia students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Last year the annual program awarded more than $300,000 in scholarships to help 110 area Northern Virginia students attend the college of their choice. Each scholarship has different selection criteria, allowing opportunities for a diverse range of students.

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January 13, 2021 (Oakton, VA) – A new report by the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia finds that 67% of Northern Virginians with low incomes (less than $50,000 per year for a family of four) are “severely burdened” by the cost of housing, spending over half of their income on rent, mortgage, taxes, fees, and basic utilities. Individuals and families with moderate incomes ($50,000 to $100,000 for a family of four) fare slightly better, but still over half (59 percent) cannot afford their homes and 19% spend over half of their income on housing. When compared to other large metropolitan areas, Northern Virginia has the highest rate of severe housing burden among low-income households and the sixth highest rate among moderate-income households in the country.

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January 7, 2021 (Oakton, VA) – The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, a trusted leader in philanthropy in the region announced today the opening of the 2021 grant cycles for its Community Investment Funds (CIF), The Environment Fund, and The Ross-Roberts Fund for the Arts. The Community Foundation conducts several discretionary grant cycles each year that help meet critical needs and seed innovative solutions to complex social problems across the region.

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December 10, 2020 (Oakton, VA) – The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia’s Business Women's Giving Circle (BWGC) today announced the winners of its annual grant cycle. A total of $60,000 in grants has been awarded to five local nonprofit organizations and schools that provide STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), Leadership, Entrepreneurship, and Mentorship programs to girls and young women in Northern Virginia. To date, BWGC has awarded more than $400,000 in grants that have impacted the lives of over 3,000 girls and young women in the region.

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November 25, 2020 (Oakton, VA) – The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, the leader in philanthropy in the region and provider of donor advised funds and other philanthropic services reported a record year in grantmaking in 2020; awarding more than $13 million in grants and scholarships, including $3,041,868 in grants from discretionary funds.

As we approach the end of 2020, please consider supporting the Community Foundation’s Permanent Fund for Northern Virginia. Built entirely with gifts from donors like you, the Permanent Fund is a permanent community endowment for our region

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November 17, 2020 (Oakton, VA) – The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a host of new challenges to early childhood education and daycare services nationwide and across our region. Today the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, in partnership with the Greater Washington Community Foundation, and PNC Foundation announced a $200,000 Build Back – Dream Forward COVID-19 Response Fund grant to support infant and toddler childcare and early childhood education programs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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October 7, 2020 (Oakton, VA) – On Friday, October 2, 2020, at 7 pm EST, the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia hosted its first virtual Raise the Region Gala. Business, philanthropic, and community leaders joined us from their own homes across the region and the nation to take part in this live-streamed event.

Hosted by NBC4’s Leon Harris, the 2020 Raise the Region gala is an annual mission-critical fundraiser that enables the Community Foundation to respond to need, seed innovation, and lead and convene the community. The theme for this year’s event was Building a Community that Works for Everyone.

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September 22, 2020 (Oakton, VA) – The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia is pleased to announce that it has awarded a total of $12,212 in Healthy Kids Grants to seven public Elementary, Middle, and High School programs in Northern Virginia. Grants up to $2,000 will be used to support programs that promote healthy lifestyles through increased exercise and physical activity or healthy nutrition. The grants are for the 2020-2021 school year.

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September 21, 2020 (Oakton, VA) – A crowd of more than 100 joined with the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia at its latest Innovation Breakfast Series: The Reinvention of Food virtual event on Thursday, September 17, 2020, to discuss the challenges facing the emergency food safety net since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Greater Washington region in March including some persistent racial and social inequities that exist, and possible paths forward to address them.

“Our food system, like many other societal systems, isn’t broken, it’s working exactly the way it was designed by those who designed it,” said Dawn Hyman, Project Manager, One Fairfax, Fairfax County. “While our food system continues to work for many, barriers and inequities still exist for many others, through race, socially, particularly in our marginalized and communities of color.”

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September 16, 2020 (Oakton, VA) – The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, the leader in local philanthropy in the region is pleased to announce that President and CEO Eileen Ellsworth is one of this year’s recipients of the Washington Business Journal's (WBJ) 2020 "Women Who Mean Business" award.

“This award is a wonderful honor. I am delighted to receive it and to be a part of yet another distinguished class of remarkably influential, powerful, and impressive women,” said Ellsworth. “But clearly, the award belongs to the entire staff, board, and family of friends and donors at the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia who makes possible all that we have accomplished.”

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