Thanks to special opportunities and great partners like SRQ Magazine, the inner workings of philanthropy get more exposure in our community. This week, I enjoyed serving on the SB2 Foundations panel on the Basis of Giving detailing the ways foundations can take risks and provide innovative solutions to our community’s problems in ways other sectors cannot. Before the panel, Mark Brewer, president and CEO of the Central Florida Foundation, stressed the importance of foundations making decisions based on the strategies that lead to the greatest good, not on popularity or politics. We agree.

To maximize any investment, we like to look at the ways organizations are using the power of partnerships to enhance their impact. One movement we are particularly proud of is the two-generation approach addressing needs of both vulnerable children and their parents together in our region, thanks to the combined efforts of so many partners in both the private and public sector.

In partnership with Ascend at the Aspen Institute, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County is hosting a 2Gen Summit this month, the first of its kind in our region. Over two days, more than 240 local leaders from nonprofit organizations, civic groups, county school systems, city and county commissions and the private sector will convene to determine ways we as a community can strategize how to honor, respect and support vulnerable families as they take steps to build an intergenerational cycle of opportunity. Attendees will also hear from national thought leaders from around the country.

Shortly after I arrived in Sarasota in the spring of 2011, a donor of the Community Foundation, Charlotte Perret, introduced me to Anne Mosle, executive director of Ascend and vice president of the Aspen Institute. After meeting with Anne and learning about her vision, I quickly realized that much of the past work and initiatives of the Community Foundation already touched on many of the key components involved in the two-generation approach:

• Educational opportunities, providing families with scholarship opportunities, life skills and parental and professional development

• Economic supports, offering assistance with housing, transportation, financial education and asset-building, tax credits, and child care subsidies so parents have an important scaffold to support their efforts in gaining financial stability.

• Social capital, building on the resilience of families and bolstering the aspirations parents have for their children and for themselves by providing access to a system of peer support, including networking with family, friends, neighbors, various community organizations and employment contacts.  

The two-generation approach created the opportunity for the Community Foundation to bring these elements together to enhance and focus our local impact. Through our Two-Gen Task Force powered by Community Foundation board members and community leaders, we are addressing obstacles that vulnerable families face through partnerships with organizations throughout our community.

We now look forward to exchanging ideas, learning about successes in our community and around the country, connecting with peers working in the same sphere, helping each other find solutions to the problems affecting our region’s most vulnerable families, and creating a region in which a legacy of economic security and educational success can pass on from one generation to the next.

I invite you to contact me to share your thoughts on making even more progress.

Roxie Jerde is the president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Sarasota County.