During the Rural Philanthropy Summit on April 25, the Community Foundation of the Ozarks selected the Cape Area Community Foundation as an Affiliate of the Year. The award recognizes the CACF’s excellence in leadership in the CFO’s 53-member affiliate network and comes with a $2,000 prize grant. CACF Board Member Sara Gerau and Treasurer Shelly Kaiser accepted the award.

The CACF was selected because it created seven new charitable funds and distributed nearly $200,000 in grants last year. Additionally, the CACF has been actively engaged with city leadership to promote charitable causes, including the development of a disaster recovery funding program.

The Ash Grove Area Community Foundation, Barton County Community Foundation, Community Foundation of the Lake, and the Nevada/Vernon County Community Foundation were also recognized as Affiliates of the Year.

The affiliates were selected using several criteria — asset growth, new funds established, overall grantmaking and new Legacy Society members in the 2022 fiscal year that ended June 30, 2022 — along with examples of community leadership, collaboration and the promotion of planned giving.

In addition to grant prizes presented in honor of affiliate leaders, affiliate foundations received a total of $23,000 to supplement their annual grantmaking to the communities they serve. The awards mark 30 years of the CFO’s Affiliate Foundation program, which began in 1993 with the establishment of the Nixa Community Foundation.

“For 30 years, our regional affiliate foundations have done so much to improve the quality of life in many communities across our wide service area,” said Alice Wingo, the CFO’s vice president of affiliates. “Our foundation leaders work hard to build long-term, sustainable resources that will benefit all sectors of a community. With exemplary foundations and leaders like the ones honored today, these 53 towns, counties and regions have bright futures ahead.”

The awards capped off the Rural Philanthropy Summit, presented by the CFO and Philanthropy Missouri at the Oasis Convention Center. The event is believed to be the first statewide gathering of philanthropists and foundations focused on the development of rural communities.

Founded in 1973, the Community Foundation of the Ozarks is marking its 50th anniversary in 2023 as the region’s largest public charitable foundation serving a network of donors, 53 regional affiliate foundations — including the Cape Area Community Foundation — and nonprofit partners across central and southern Missouri through its mission of resource development, community grantmaking, collaboration and public leadership.