Thank goodness the weekly meals enjoyed by members of the Rotary Club of Charleston didn’t start costing more in 1973. At mid-year, the club budgeted $9,000 extra for meals, but when a cost increase didn’t materialize, club members decided to use the funding for something completely new — a community foundation.
First, of course, came a committee. Fortunately, it included visionary community leaders Howard Edwards, then the club’s president, as well as College of Charleston President Ted Stern, attorney Wade Logan III, broadcaster Bill Saunders and businessman Malcolm Haven. By 1974, they organized what first was known as the Trident Community Foundation. It was to be a fulcrum to apply the skills of community leaders to safeguard and manage charitable gifts made in perpetuity.
And boy, was that $9,000 well-spent. From its humble beginnings, the now-named Coastal Community Foundation is a wildly successful nonprofit celebrating 50 years of community action and service. It’s grown to a Lowcountry powerhouse with assets worth more than $500 million — yes, a half-billion dollars — from donor-advised funds, donations and investments.
Through the years, CCF has pumped real money — more than $425 million over 50 years — into Charleston with grants to 5,800 nonprofits and community organizations and scholarships to 4,000 students.
In other words, the Coastal Community Foundation has changed lives. And it will continue to do so in its core areas, which include improving education, advancing economic mobility, building coastal resilience, promoting physical and mental well-being, promoting culture and inclusion and growing future leaders.
The foundation’s role is to quietly level the playing field by being a convener and connector across the community, says CCF’s President and CEO, Darrin Goss Sr.
“We don’t feel our team has to solve these issues — that is, at the community level,” he explains. “Our job is to bring resources, make connections and provide data and research. With that, the community can solve it for themselves.”
National communications executive Marva Smalls, who was keynote speaker at a Saturday anniversary gala at the Gaillard Center, shared the foundation’s importance in working with residents in every corner of the Lowcountry to find common ground.
“We find common-sense solutions to problems facing our communities,” said Smalls, who has a philanthropic fund at CCF. “We find grassroots organizations doing uncommon, impactful work, and we lift them up to unimaginable heights.”
Bringing different people together is key to CCF’s success, she said.
“Communities can’t survive when they suffer from disinvestment. People cannot thrive when they are disenfranchised and discriminated against. Children can’t thrive when they are denied a world-class education, and families can’t thrive when they can’t afford decent housing. And human beings can’t thrive when they suffer from food insecurity and no one can thrive when they are reeling from hurricanes, floods or other natural disasters.
“These are the challenges that CCF has been addressing for the past 50 years, and that’s why … it is so important to every aspect of life in coastal South Carolina.”
Happy 50th anniversary, CCF, and good luck for the next 50.
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