Moving from Good Causes to Root Causes - A Toolkit on Poverty for Community Foundations

Understanding Your Context

Your Current Role in Poverty

Most community foundations are already working to alleviate or reduce poverty, through their grantmaking and other initiatives. It's important to review your current role, so that everyone involved in planning is clear about your current scope of activity.With that common understanding, you can build on your existing work and identify how you will work differently to become more strategic.

There are differing perspectives on poverty (see Ways to Respond to Poverty) and there is no single, simple approach. Before looking forward to a new or stronger strategy, take a moment to review and understand what you are currently doing to address poverty in your community. The tool below may help.

Tool: A Quick Scan of Your Current Poverty Role


  1. What is our Grantmaking History re Poverty?
    1. Undesignated/Community Fund: Use your granting database to assess past grants for the last 3 or 4 years. What proportion is to organizations working in poverty reduction? How many grants are directed to populations with high rates of poverty? How much granting is going into low-income neighbourhoods? Have you made grants to strengthen the capacity of anti-poverty organizations?
    2. Field of Interest Funds: within your field of interest funds, how much granting is directed to low income populations, issues, or neighbourhoods? For example, is an arts grant directed at increasing access to the arts for disadvantaged children?
    3. Donor-advised Funds: Scan your donor advised grants. What proportion is directed at poverty alleviation or reduction?
  2. What is our Convening/Leadership History re Poverty?
    1. Think about the convening and catalytic work of the foundation over the last few years. Have you played a role in bringing anti-poverty organizations together? Have you funded research into poverty? Have you made grants to the organizations that plan poverty strategies? Are you present at the community tables where poverty strategies are discussed?
  3. Are there other roles we have played, or do we have other relationships that address poverty issues?

A Lesson from the Field

The Calgary Foundation, after strengthening its approach to poverty through two new initiatives, realized that its other granting streams could influence poverty too. They needed a broader internal perspective. Here's an early learning from Calgary:

"One strategy to develop the discourse on poverty within the Foundation is to see how it impacts our current "lenses" – environment, arts and heritage, wellness, diversity and inclusion. How does poverty influence who gets included or excluded in our discussions and our granting support? How can our current granting be more informed by a deeper understanding of poverty?"