Community Conversations

Multiple Obstacles: Stable Finances, Funding Uncertainty, and Burnout: What the Data Tells Us About Nonprofit Resilience in Northern Virginia

November 11, 2025

When federal funding shifts, the ripple effects are immediate. Individuals and families feel it in closed parks, scaled back after-school and Head-Start programs, and food banks and pantries stretched thin. These services often mark the line between stability and crisis for members of the community and the nonprofit organizations serving community needs across the Northern Virginia region.

At the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia, we asked: How are nonprofits in Northern Virginia weathering this storm? What can we do – as funders, donors and partners – to help?

Community Foundation for Northern Virginia Leads Regional Dialogue on Youth Well-Being

March 26, 2025

Fairfax, VA (March 26, 2025) – The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia (CFNOVA) convened hundreds of leaders, community members, and changemakers for its annual Shape of the Region conference, an essential gathering focused on the pressing challenges and opportunities shaping the region’s future. This year’s event focused on youth well-being, addressing issues like bullying, school safety, substance abuse, and mental health access.

Making Connections Across Differences: Elevate NOVA People’s Supper

October 3, 2024

The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia invited our community of donors, partners, and changemakers to join us for a September 12 community dinner, The People’s Supper, as a capstone event to our 2024 Elevate NOVA Book Circle. David Brooks’ teachings at the 2024 Shape of the Region and in his book, How to Know a Person, were put to the test during this event focused on social trust. The Community Foundation hosted The People’s Supper in partnership with Dinner Party Labs. Over 40 guests attended and participated in lively, insightful conversations while having a great meal.

Get to Know the Swirski Family Fund

May 14, 2024

The combination of compassion and action can leave an enduring legacy. Indeed, one individual’s goodwill can achieve more than short-term relief—it can create a ripple effect of generosity. Take Sandra Swirski, who recently described how gratitude for philanthropy inspired her to launch a career in philanthropy law and the Swirski Family Fund with the Community Foundation’s Family Giving Program.

Innovation Breakfast Series: The Reinvention of Food

September 21, 2020

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 Community Responds

April 13, 2020

Eileen Ellsworth, President/CEO Community Foundation for Northern VirginiaDear donors, volunteers, grantees, and friends:

“Social distance” strikes me as such a mild, innocuous little phrase that doesn’t even hint at the 1 million small and large choices we are making to stay home, stay safe, and keep others safe as well. Turns out that successful social distancing is a puzzle that needs re-solving every day. And for those with school aged children or elderly parents who are also home and in need of care and attention, solving the daily puzzle is nothing short of heroic. This is the extraordinary role that we ordinary citizens have been asked to play in the COVID-19 pandemic.

But for just a moment, imagine this. On top of social distancing and the threat of the virus, you are laid off with little or no savings and your job is the only source of income that enables you to eat and pay rent. Imagine that you or a family member gets sick – with the virus or otherwise – and you don’t have heath insurance. Imagine you are elderly, homebound, and dependent upon the delivery of meals when the volunteer pool of delivery drivers disappears. Imagine having to shelter in place with an abusive spouse.

We all have a lot on our plate, but thousands of our neighbors have far more to bear in this moment.

Our Community Responds to COVID-19

March 18, 2020

Eileen Ellsworth, President/CEO Community Foundation for Northern VirginiaDear donors, volunteers, grantees, and friends:

Here is some very good news: All sectors of our beloved community in Northern Virginia have come together to respond to COVID-19.

We are particularly blessed in our region with strong anchor institutions led by extremely well trained and responsive leaders. Of even greater significance, to my mind, is that existing relationships between and among our region’s leaders are also strong. Intra-sector and cross sector communications are active and ongoing. There is no doubt that the level and quality of these community-based conversations will drive better outcomes for our region.