Family Philanthropy at LVCF

CASE STUDY | LVCF and Laros Foundation Forge Philanthropic Partnership to Increase Impact

During FY23, The Helen & R.K. Laros Foundation established a philanthropic partnership with the Community Foundation to increase the impact of its grantmaking to nonprofits in the region. The Laros Foundation has transferred a portion of its grantmaking processes to the Community Foundation while maintaining its assets, staff, board of trustees, mission and grantmaking focus. The Community Foundation provides the needed operational support that enables the Laros Foundation’s board and staff to focus on their mission and maximize their impact.

The aim of the Laros Foundation Board was to reduce the operational burdens experienced by private foundations. Gathering information on nonprofit organizations, processing applications for grants, and evaluating grant applications took an enormous amount of time and effort. In addition, the Laros board was rightfully concerned about the ongoing demands on staff to manage the grants process. Knowing that the Community Foundation has growing capacity as a grantmaking organization with web-based technology that simplifies the receiving, processing and evaluating applications for grants, the Laros Foundation reached out to the Community Foundation for assistance.

In the fall of 2022, the Laros Foundation Trustees approved an agreement to transition its grantmaking process to LVCF. “The Community Foundation provided us with the perfect way to focus our attention on the important grantmaking work of the Laros Foundation,” said Sharon Zondag, Executive Director of the Laros Foundation (below). “We took advantage of the exquisite capacity of the Community Foundation and immediately increased our ability to improve our service to the community. Because the Community Foundation works closely with the nonprofit community of the Lehigh Valley, our grant applicants were already familiar with the application portal at the Community Foundation.”

The partnership has proven very successful for both parties. “We knew we can expand our footprint of service to the Lehigh Valley community, and we felt strongly that we could provide exactly what the Laros Foundation needed,” said Erika Riddle Petrozelli, CPA, CAP®, President and CEO of the Community Foundation. “When a private foundation engages our Impact Services, it not only frees itself from many time-consuming critical functions, it also provides insurance against staff turnover.”

About the Helen & R.K. Laros Foundation

The Laros Foundation has been committed to supporting the community of Bethlehem since its founding in 1952. Helen & R.K. Laros believed in engaging and connecting with the people and organizations of Bethlehem to be a part of building a stronger, more resilient society. Fundamental to this commitment is the value the Foundation places on inclusion, diversity, equity, and access for all in the organizations and communities it serves.

Grants have supported the Community Action (Committee) of the LV since 1985 and were part of the initiative to build SteelStacks and the Banana Factory, the ongoing maintenance of the Salvation Army & the expansion of New Bethany Ministries mission with housing and a food-bank, Touchstone Theatre since its earliest days in 1979 for construction costs, and Northampton Community College to build the Fowler Campus, and of course so much more. Since its inception in 1952, the R.K. Laros Foundation has granted nearly $9 million to nonprofits in the community.