ABOUT THE SONOMA VALLEY FUND
WHO WE ARE
SVF is a regional affiliate of Community Foundation Sonoma County
Community-based affiliate organizations are the perfect bridge to bring Community Foundation’s services into our Valley. Sonoma Valley Fund operates exclusively in the Valley, with board members and donors from our community offering local guidance to the fund and to CFSC’s grantmaking in the Valley.
Being an affiliate allows the Valley to benefit from the Community Foundation’s broad resources, including their comprehensive investment program, professional staff services, grant making expertise, legal knowledge and administrative support, while at the same time bringing a decidedly local perspective to the priorities, the needs, and the connections critical to building a stronger community in our Valley.
To learn more about Community Foundation Sonoma County, visit Community Foundation Sonoma County.
HISTORY
2007
During 2007, Sonoma Valley Fund’s first year of operation, we were pleased to be able to award grants totaling more than $23,000 to local Sonoma Valley organizations. These grants supported a wide diversity of work, including promoting and enhancing community-wide events such as a Geographic Information Systems Day, the Watershed Walk and a Dia de los Muertos celebration, trainings to improve client services and mentoring skills and build capacity for effective strategic planning and board development, and underwriting gang prevention forums.
Our competitive grants program was designed specifically to complement the competitive grants offered by Community Foundation Sonoma County, and to give local groups an additional source for funds. We offered grants in two areas – Branch Out Grants for programs or events that help build community and Strong Roots Grants for projects that strengthen a nonprofit’s capabilities.
2015
In 2015, the Community Foundation Sonoma County’s Sonoma Valley Fund launched a capacity building grants program called Organizational Capacity Learning Cohort One. That effort engaged six organizations over three years (now in its fourth Sustaining Success year) in an intensive learning and sharing process.
In 2020, the Sonoma Valley Fund is initiating a second Cohort — Strengthening Capacity, Connections and Community. With guidance provided by Cohort One organizations, Cohort Two will focus on broadening and deepening connections and cultivating resilience — helping each other be braver, stronger and better together — able to overcome obstacles, meet challenges, deliver quality services, and support one another over time to continuously improve. The Fund’s overarching goal is to continue to grow a network of nonprofits deeply committed to strengthening themselves and one another in service of delivering quality programs and offerings to Sonoma Valley residents.
2017
Sonoma Valley Fund releases Hidden in Plain Sight, a comprehensive report exploring the challenges facing the Sonoma Valley community.
The challenges to Sonoma Valley’s future are “hidden in plain sight.” And so is the overall shape of the nonprofit sector that addresses those challenges. This report invites civic leaders, donors, and nonprofit boards and staffs to take a fresh look at how we might be more effective and efficient at using the Valley’s many assets to preserve what is best here while addressing growing challenges.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MAKING A DIFFERENCE THROUGH LOCAL GIVING
By giving to the Sonoma Valley Fund, donors can ensure that their gifts will support the nonprofit organizations in the Valley for years to come. Through grantmaking guided by local, knowledgeable community leaders, the Sonoma Valley Fund champions nonprofit organizations and supports the causes that matter in our community.