Mission, History & Credo

Our History

Our organization was established in 1993 as the Everett Parks Foundation for the purpose of helping donors enhance Everett’s parks.  Since then, we have broadened our capacity and ability to help donors wishing to leave lasting legacies for other community assets.  In 2001, we changed our name to the Greater Everett Community Foundation to reflect these expanded services to donors.  In 2002, we merged with the Snohomish County Community Foundation to create one, unified community foundation serving donors throughout Snohomish County.  All the while, our mission to strengthen communities by helping caring people express their values through philanthropy has remained unchanged.
 
Over the past thirteen years our Foundation has given out over $3 million in grants to a variety of charitable organizations in our communities.  Our assets have surpassed the $6 million mark thanks to the commitment of our eight founding donor families and the generosity of many, many other members of our community and we now have over 75 various funds.  
 
Growth, however, is more than numbers.  We at the Greater Everett Community Foundation think of growth not only in financial terms but also in the ways we help the community and inspire people’s lives.
 

Our Mission

Our mission is to work in partnership with donors to strengthen communities
in greater Everett and throughout Snohomish County by:
Building permanent charitable funds,
Connecting donors to charitable causes they care about,
Making effective grants
Providing leadership to address community issues.
 

Our Credo

Our first responsibility is to the Community.  
Our second responsibility is to our Donors.  
Our third responsibility is to the employees and volunteers who work with us.
We are truthful and honest in word and deed.    
We value connection and relationship.  
We believe imagination and reality are one.
We enter the unknown in the spirit of discovery.  
We take care of what we help to create.  
We are building our organization to last forever.
We adhere to the highest legal and financial standards.  
We make bold commitments and champion uncommon notions.
We must be led by people of talent, knowledge, and experience.  
We expect and reward excellence and high productivity.    
We honor all gifts with style and grace.  
We are attentive to donors’ particular interests.
We tell our donors how and why their gifts made a difference.
We bring history forward through our donors’ tradition of caring.  
 
We are determined to live these values to the best of our ability.