Mission
Connecting a caring community with causes that make a difference.
Who We Are
Community foundations are rooted in the places they serve, bringing people together to strengthen community well-being. By pooling resources, building wealth over time, and listening to diverse voices, they support solutions that respond to changing needs and reflect what matters most locally.
Since 2003, the Sunshine Coast Foundation has served this role on the Coast, turning charitable gifts into lasting community benefit. We steward funds from individuals, families, businesses, and organizations, each with its own purpose, while offering flexible ways to give. Most are invested as endowed funds, with annual income granted to support local charities now and for generations.
Our granting spans priorities from food and housing security to arts, youth, health, education, and the environment, adapting as needs and opportunities evolve while keeping long-term well-being in focus.
We also act as a convener, bringing people together to learn, share, and collaborate. We do this through partnerships and initiatives that build capacity in our charitable sector, such as Coast Together, a free workshop series for local non-profits, and Vital Signs, Canada’s most extensive community driven data program that helps identify trends and sparks conversations about what well-being can look like on the Coast.
In the video below, our Executive Director, Board Chair, and long-time Foundation supporters share what makes a community foundation unique and why community philanthropy matters. Their perspectives highlight the power of local generosity and the impact that can be achieved when people come together around a shared vision for the future.
We invite you to learn more about our work, our community, and the role each of us can play in creating lasting local impact!
Video Transcript
00:00:02 Erin Storey, Executive Director
Hi, my name is Erin Storey and I’m the Executive Director at the Sunshine Coast Foundation. What a Community Foundation is a place-based charitable organization that allows people to give back to the community they love. And in our case, it’s the Sunshine Coast. We nurture relationships with donors. We get to know what they’re passionate about, which organizations and causes they care about the most in our community, and when they decide to give a gift to us, we take that gift and we invest it.
00:00:43 Elfie Hofmann, Board Chair
Hi, I’m Elfie Hofmann, and I currently serve as the Sunshine Coast Foundation Board Chair. It begins with the donor. It’s either creating an endowment or donating to the Foundation. Because without the donor we can’t grant. Anyone can make a donation and every single dollar counts. The Foundation, you know, acts as a funding umbrella. So, we fund our entire community. It isn’t just one cause that we fund. So, it’s from food security, senior care, youth, arts, environment. We fund it all.
00:01:24 Erin Storey, Executive Director
We all take our responsibilities very seriously because donors place a great deal of trust in us when they make a gift. A donation often represents someone’s values, their life’s work, the love they have for the Sunshine Coast, or their hopes for the future, and so we work really hard to honor that trust and each donor’s vision.
00:01:44 Blane Hagedorn, Former Director
I’m Blane Hagedorn, and I was one of the original directors. People should know that everybody there has the community’s best wishes at heart.
00:01:53 Elfie Hofmann, Board Chair
I think we’re behind the scenes more than a typical charity. You know, we find and empower existing frontline organizations so that they can continue to provide for the needs in our community. Every decision we made is guided by Vital Signs and knowledge that our Grants Committee has about community needs. We’re really the hands that support all those frontline organizations.
00:02:22 Erin Storey, Executive Director
So, the Community Foundation came to be… A group of just citizens in our community recognized that there was a gap in funding for our local charities and our nonprofit sector. They also recognized that charitable dollars were leaving the Sunshine Coast because there was no place for someone to make a long-term gift like an endowment fund. And, so, this group of, these citizens, came together and quite quickly gathered support from a group of donors and organizations and our Sunshine Coast Credit Union and created the Foundation in 2003 with a vision that it would support our community over the long term. And that’s exactly what’s happened.
00:03:03 Sandy McBride, Founding Member
My name is Sandy McBride, and I have been involved with the Foundation since its very inception. So, that’s quite a long time. As the time has gone on and the Foundation assets have grown and the money that has been handed out has grown, the Foundation has been able to provide larger sums and over a longer period of time. That’s like providing planning money and go-forward money for important causes in our community. If it hadn’t been for Don Basham, there would be no Foundation. Don Basham worked tirelessly, tirelessly, and so did several of the rest of us, but there was a lot of paperwork. Getting charitable status isn’t easy. Getting the original grant applications so that there was a relationship with the Vancouver Foundation, there was lots and lots of work, and it was very challenging.
00:04:02 Erin Storey, Executive Director
Here’s someone who loves the Sunshine Coast, and you’ve been thinking about how to give back to this community and ensure that your organizations or the causes that you care about are supported over the long term — then the Community Foundation might just be a great option for you.
00:04:24 Blane Hagedorn, Former Director
Philanthropy or a gift to the community…The best place to place it with would be the Community Foundation. Because of the experience, the knowledge, and the group itself is so keyed. And keyed to the pulse of the community that you can rest assured that your gift would be well received and well spent or well distributed through the community.
Vision
A healthy and vibrant community where everyone belongs.
Mission
Connecting a caring community with causes that make a difference.
Who We Are
The Sunshine Coast Foundation provides stable and sustainable financial support to charitable organizations from Port Mellon to Egmont. We offer donors the opportunity to increase their impact by pooling the gifts we receive and carefully investing them. Each year, we use the earnings on our investments to provide funding to local charities. We help to connect donors with the causes that inspire them and the charities that are having the greatest positive impact. Our Vital Signs program compiles current and relevant research to help local organizations and decision-makers understand the issues and trends facing our Sunshine Coast community. The Sunshine Coast Foundation is a member of Community Foundations of Canada, a network of over 200 foundations supporting their local communities from coast to coast to coast.