Pull up a Chair: April Newsletter

Emily Prince • April 16, 2026

Enriching what Maters Most

Spring offers a natural moment to reflect on the impact of your generosity and to look ahead at what is possible.


Across Athens County, your support fuels the work of nonprofit organizations, strengthens partnerships, and helps create the conditions for a more connected, thriving community. At the Athens County Foundation, we are honored to work alongside you as you shape that impact.


This month, we are reflecting on our shared progress through the lens of the 5Es: Enable, Engage, Elevate, Expand, and Enrich, a framework that guides how your philanthropy comes to life in the community.


Celebration of Community: Enriching What Matters Most


Our recent Celebration of Community was an opportunity to pause and recognize the people and partnerships that make Athens County strong.


As we honored this year’s award recipients, we were reminded that meaningful change is driven by individuals and organizations working together with care, commitment, and purpose.


Your support plays a direct role in making these moments possible. More importantly, it sustains the relationships and collaborations that strengthen our community every day.


This is the heart of Enrich, supporting the ideas, initiatives, and connections that lead to lasting impact.

The 5 Es

The 5 Es are the Athens County Foundation’s core strategies for advancing community impact. They guide how the Foundation works with partners to create lasting change.


Enable: Expanding Opportunities for Participation


Your philanthropy helps create pathways for more people to participate in shaping the future of Athens County.

This includes:

  • Supporting programs that remove barriers and increase access
  • Investing in organizations that elevate community voice
  • Ensuring that more individuals can contribute their ideas and talents

When participation expands, so does possibility. Your giving helps make that possible.


Engage: Building Meaningful Connections Through Giving


Many donors find that the most rewarding philanthropy goes beyond individual gifts and becomes part of an ongoing relationship with the community.

This time of year, following tax season, is an ideal opportunity to reflect on your approach to giving:

  • Are there causes you would like to prioritize more intentionally?
  • Are there opportunities to deepen your involvement?
  • Would you benefit from additional insight into community needs?

The foundation is here to support these conversations, offering local knowledge and guidance to help you give with confidence and clarity.


Elevate: Investing in Leadership Across the Community


Strong communities are shaped by strong leaders, many of whom are working every day within nonprofit organizations across the county.

Your support helps:

  • Develop and sustain nonprofit leadership
  • Empower emerging leaders and community   voices
  • Strengthen organizations that are guiding   important work

By investing in people, you are helping build the long-term capacity of Athens County.


Expand: Strengthening Organizations and Systems


As community needs evolve, nonprofit organizations must continue to grow and adapt.

Your philanthropy plays a critical role in:

  • Expanding organizational capacity
  • Supporting effective, well-governed   nonprofits
  • Encouraging innovation and responsiveness

Many donors are increasingly interested in understanding how organizations operate and sustain their work. The foundation can help provide insight and due diligence, ensuring your giving aligns with both your values and effective practices.


Enrich: Supporting Collaborative Solutions

Some of the most meaningful progress in Athens County happens when organizations and individuals come together to address shared challenges.


Your support helps:

  • Foster collaboration across sectors
  • Strengthen partnerships between organizations
  • Advance solutions that are rooted in community insight


This collaborative approach is central to how we create lasting change and reflects the foundation’s commitment to bringing people together in service of the community.

Deepening your Impact

As you consider your giving this year, this may be a valuable moment to think not only about where you give but also about how you structure your philanthropy for long-term impact.


Some donors choose to:

  • Continue supporting specific organizations they care about
  • Increase support for flexible grantmaking that responds to emerging needs
  • Invest in the community foundation itself to strengthen its ability to serve the county over time

Each of these approaches plays a meaningful role. Together, they create a more resilient and responsive philanthropic ecosystem.

Ways to Give

The Celebration of Community reminded us that the future of Athens County is shaped by collective effort.


Your generosity supports not only individual organizations, but also the connections, leadership, and shared vision that move the entire community forward.


We are grateful to partner with you in this work.


With appreciation,
Athens County Foundation

Pull up a Chair: September Newsletter

By Emily Prince • September 17, 2026
After the Storm: What Community Resilience Looks Like

Stacy Strauss is ACF's new Director of Finance and Administration

By Emily Prince • September 1, 2026
Please join us in welcoming our new Director of Finance and Administration, Stacy Strauss. Stacy looks forward to using her skills to strengthen our community! She brings energy, creativity, and a thoughtful approach to her work, along with a genuine ability to bring people together around shared goals. Her experience spans financial management, fundraising and grant writing, program development, business strategy, and developing materials that tell a clear, compelling story.  Just as importantly, she enjoys helping others grow. She has experience leading and training teams, building collaborative cultures, developing recruitment strategies, and finding practical, creative solutions to complicated challenges. Whether working with colleagues, community partners, or other stakeholders, she builds relationships rooted in trust, communication, and a shared commitment to advancing good ideas.

Fall Grant Applications Open

By Shayne Lopez • August 28, 2026
Athens County's greatest asset is its people. Every day, neighbors, organizations, and local leaders bring skill, creativity, and deep knowledge of this place to the work of building a stronger community. Our grantmaking invests in those strengths, because the best solutions are already growing here, led by the people who call Athens County home. Our grantmaking builds on the strengths already here by investing in the initiatives, people and organizations, relationships, skills, and ideas working to address longstanding challenges and pursue extraordinary opportunities. The deadline for applications for the Senior Fund has been extended to October 18, 2026! The Athens Jaycees Senior Fund The Athens Jaycees Senior Fund supports organizations and programs working to improve the lives of older adults (60+) in Athens County. This year, approximately $65,000 is available through ACF’s Fall Grant Cycle. We want to encourage organizations to think broadly about what supporting people as they age could look like. The Jaycees fund has deep local roots. In 2014, Housing for Athens Senior Residents donated $1 million to the Athens County Foundation to establish the fund following the sale of Heritage Commons Senior Housing. Heritage Commons itself began as an Athens Jaycees project in 1981, created to expand housing opportunities for local seniors. To date, the Jaycees Senior Fund has awarded more than $415,000 to support programs and services benefiting older adults across Athens County. What could an Athens Jaycees Senior Fund project look like? We’re inviting applicants to consider how their work could help make Athens County a community where people can remain active, connected, independent, and supported as they age. Projects might address housing, transportation, community and health services, social connection, healthy living, accessibility, caregiver support, or other needs and opportunities identified by older adults. The Jaycees Senior Fund intentionally remains flexible so that organizations can bring forward ideas grounded in what they are seeing and hearing in their communities. If your organization has an idea that could improve the experience of aging in Athens County, we encourage you to consider ACF’s Fall Grant Cycle to access the Jaycees Senior Fund. The deadline for grant requests supporting senior-related programs has been extended to October 18, 2026. For more information, please visit athensfoundation.org/grants. -------- If you’d like guidance in developing or strengthening an age-friendly program idea, we encourage you to reach out directly to Amy Lipka with Age-Friendly Athens County at alipka@athenspublichealth.org. The Athens City-County Health Department will also sponsor Healthy Aging Community Grants in early 2027.