News

Many thanks to everyone who stopped by for our Community Open House on October 10th! In addition to the busy Open House, we hosted two dedications and two preview events, resulting in 350+ people seeing our enhanced space to serve Washtenaw County.

We are pleased to introduce the new Youth Council members who are joining the committee this academic year! They represent a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives on our community.

Youth Council consists of ~25 diverse students from Ann Arbor public, private, and independent high schools who work together to better the lives of youth in Washtenaw County. At the 2017 Youth Council Year-End Reception, we celebrated the graduations of six of our Youth Council members.

On June 6th, AAACF held an inaugural event, a Celebration of Scholarships Luncheon, to honor our scholarship donors, committee volunteers, and recipients.

With the creation of a new $500,000 loan fund, Washtenaw County nonprofits will soon have access to a new source of capital. During its 2017 Annual Community Meeting, the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation (AAACF) announced an enhanced “impact investing” effort made possible by a social-impact strategist and donor.

Many thanks to the 400+ attendees at our Annual Community Meeting on May 8, 2017 at Washtenaw Community College! It was a great evening, full of community connections, learning, and big announcements.

In the fall of 2016, AAACF piloted a new type of community investment, called Bold Ideas, to invest in innovative ideas and projects that generate a significant leap in how our community addresses a long-term or emerging need.

Savannah Ellington, a 2016 Community Scholar, and Shawntae Harris, College Success Coach, shared their experiences with the Community Scholarship Program at the 2016 Founders Society Luncheon.

At our Annual Community Meeting this past May, we asked the community to take part in a new activity that put them in the driver’s seat as grantmakers, while also giving them a chance to let us know how they thought our resources should be divided up between our priorities. This "Crowd-Granting" activity asked each participant to take an imaginary $100 and divide it up between AAACF’s four strategic priorities: Cultural Economic Development, our new Community Scholarship Program, Coordinated Funding, and Rewarding Success.

“Impact investing actually represents a much wider spectrum of possibilities than traditional grantmaking,” says Neel Hajra, president and CEO of the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. This three-minute video tells the story behind the renovations at a local fine arts organization and how it became a reality due to a low interest loan from AAACF.