The number of community foundations in the U.S. has more than doubled in the last decade, the Boston Globe reports. Total assets of the 545 foundations now in existence reached approximately $21 billion, says Dorothy Ridings, executive director of the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C.

Ridings told The Boston Globe that the 250 community foundations in existence ten years ago had assets of about $6 billion.

The popularity of community foundations is due in part to a donor's ability to help his or her local communities while being assured the money given is put to good.

Such foundations are unlike corporate foundations and family foundations, says David Kronberg, executive director of the Greater Lowell Community Foundation in Massachusetts. That's because donors don't necessarily have to be wealthy to participate. Individual donations are pooled and then invested.

On the other hand, Ridings told the Globe that community foundations give "families of means" a way to donate without having to run their own private foundations.

The article reports that many grants from larger philanthropic groups also end up at community foundations. These grants serve as a way to encourage the community foundations to become grant makers themselves.

Robbin Peach, executive director of the Massachusetts Environmental Trust, says community foundations know what local programs are most effective, and thus can better determine what organizations should get the money.

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_foundations_make_giving_more_attractive+.shtml