The central mission of a community foundation involves mobilizing place-based giving and coordinating collective action to benefit the community. To this end, community foundations as institutional vehicles can play an important role in sustaining philanthropic commons. In this chapter, I posit that community foundations, as community leaders, can mitigate the tragedy of the commons by counteracting social dilemmas and collective action challenges. Drawing on the IAD framework, I explore four collective action problems within the action arena of community philanthropy. I argue that community leadership can catalyze collective action by initiating meaningful dialogues among stakeholders, cultivating a deep understanding of community needs, stakeholders, and policy contexts, and aligning philanthropic resources with strategic goals for the community. By asserting leadership roles, these foundations amplify philanthropic impact and foster self-governance within a "philanthropic community," where foundations, donors, nonprofits, community members, and public and private stakeholders collectively share responsibility for the renewal, management, and governance of community philanthropy over the long term.
Turning to the empirical data, I examine the scope of leadership practices and the perspectives of foundation leaders. The survey results revealed that community foundations excel in building partnerships, prioritizing community needs, investing in capacity building, convening stakeholders, and sharing knowledge. Yet, policy engagement remains limited. Based on the open-ended responses, foundation leaders reported several perceived benefits of acting as community leaders, including fostering greater trust, initiating crucial dialogues, increasing community participation, attracting resources, and achieving greater impact. Despite the merits, limited resources, political considerations, and lack of expertise are some of the key perceived challenges of practicing leadership in their communities.
In conclusion, this study underscores the vital role of philanthropic institutions and self-governing practices in community leadership to address and mitigate collective action challenges in community philanthropy. Collective action in this context involves donors, nonprofits, and communities working together to manage resources and amplify impact through pooled efforts and collaboration. Community foundations, as institutional vehicles, play a key leadership role in facilitating collective action and reducing power imbalances among stakeholders.
