Helping Caring People Give Forever

Our Mission

To enhance the quality of our lives by enabling all of us, individual and corporate citizens, to give back to our community by building permanent legacies

Our Vision

To help create a better community for us all, today – tomorrow – forever

The Barrie Community Foundation’s goals are:

• To raise in excess of $4,000,000 in Endowment Funds  over the next six years to enable the Foundation to make grants of more  than $200,000 per year
• To achieve financial sustainability
• To serve all registered charities
• To raise the level of philanthropy for the better of  our community

The Barrie Community Foundation is a public foundation that builds and manages endowment funds to support charitable activities in Barrie and area. The Barrie Community Foundation pools the charitable gifts of many donors to create permanent, income earning endowment funds – a nest egg that will always be there to benefit the communities. A donation, large or small, will make a difference, now and forever.

The Barrie Community Foundation uses the income earned by invested funds to give grants to a wide range of community groups; the original investment is left to grow over time. The earnings are used for particular charitable programs that the donor chooses to support; i.e. seniors, youth, low-income, recreation, health, environment, art, and music. Donors can choose to support many local initiatives or designate to their favourite cause. The funds that are raised in the community support Barrie and its surrounding area.

Our Role

• Provide a vehicle for donors to make and direct their  charitable donations in perpetuity
• Match donors’ charitable interests with the needs of  the community
• Provide donors with a flexible range of giving and  disbursement options
• Build and manage permanent capital funds
• Use the earnings of the capital funds to support a wide  range of community needs.

What We Do

• We provide a means of keeping charitable donations  within the community
• We are not in competition with other charitable  organizations; we support them
• We create an endowment fund from which only the  earnings are disbursed every year
• The endowments we manage for donors allow them to  provide continuous gifts

Choice of Endowment Funds

Donors may create or contribute to any of the following funds:

General Community Fund

A donation to this fund gives the Foundation the greatest flexibility. The earnings on this fund enable our Board of Directors to respond to current community needs through the awarding of grants to charities throughout Barrie and area.

Field of Interest Fund

Donors identify an area of interest that they would like their donation to support. Examples include the arts, environment, health, seniors, social services, children, recreation, relief of poverty, or education.

Designated Fund

This type of fund gives the donor the opportunity to specify, at the time the fund is established, which particular charity or charities they would like to support in perpetuity.

Donor-Advised Fund

The donor, donor's family, or designates recommend annually to the Board of Directors which Barrie charitable organizations should receive the income.

Administrative Fund

A donor may choose to provide direct support. The administrative fund is used to offset operating costs.

Helping Charities Grow

The Barrie Community Foundation exists to support other charities whose work helps make Barrie and area a better place to live.

Charitable organizations may establish permanently endowed funds to provide a source of annual income for operations or programs. These funds are held and invested by the Foundation and grants are made to the organizations on an annual basis. Your charity’s funds, when pooled with those of other organizations and individual donors enable the entire fund to generate more income at less cost.

Why use the Barrie Community Foundation, rather than doing it yourself?

Organizations recognize the skill, expertise and resource requirement to manage a permanent endowment. Since Barrie Community Foundation is in the full-time business of building a permanent endowment for the community, it has, or will have, the necessary resources in place. These include:

• An investment policy that restricts investments to  those which are prudent and fiscally safe.
• Recent amendments to the Trustee Act (Ontario)  have presented substantial change in law with respect to trustees’  authority to invest trust assets and the trustees’ fiduciary  responsibilities. More and more boards recognize the significance  of these obligations and are turning to their local Community Foundation  as an alternative. The ability to establish a fund with the  Community Foundation and achieve a greater return on investment over  time due to the diversification and size of the portfolio has impressed  many boards.
• Both boards and staff of charities are relieved to  focus solely on building and strengthening their core business and to  let the Barrie Community  Foundation administer their endowment.
• Cost efficiencies are achieved by having all funds at  the Barrie Community Foundation share in the cost of an investment counsel, custodian, lawyers,  auditors, staff expertise and general overhead. 
• Each year, income earned on your organization’s fund  is available to be used by your charity as it determines or is  reinvested in the capital.
• The Foundation has the technical expertise and the  facility to accept gifts in a timely, cost effective manner on behalf of  the agency, e.g. transfer of shares etc.
• Because the fund is held as a fund of the Barrie Community Foundation , it will be publicized in the Barrie  Community Foundation materials and could attract new donors.

Please contact the Barrie Community Foundation for more information or to request a presentation to be made to your Board of Directors.

For further information, please contact:

Barrie Community Foundation
P.O. Box 376, Barrie, ON L4M 4T5
Attention: Jim Perrin, Chair
Phone: 705-719-6994
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