What We Do

Because we are a charitable community foundation, people think we exist solely to raise money, to manage money, and to give money away. We do so much more than that. We connect people and organizations with ideas and resources. We link donors to projects that do good for Northwest Arkansas.

Leadership:
Endeavor exists to strengthen the health and vitality of our communities both in the short term and over the long haul. We do that by identifying pressing community needs and developing effective strategies to address those needs with our partners and community’s leadership. Then, working with our donors, we make grants to support those agencies and non profits that are on the ground, doing the heavy lifting. 

Grantmaking:
We make grants. How hard is giving money away? It’s one thing to give money away. It’s altogether something different to make a real and lasting difference. At Endeavor, we invest in research to assess the real needs. After we make a grant, we make site visits to see for ourselves – and our Board and donors – that grant funds are spent properly and that we’re not just applying band-aids to serious problems. We’re diligent. We spend hundreds of hours each year meeting with community leaders, nonprofit executives, partners, and other donors and foundations. Bottom line is we do our homework.

We deal in many kinds of capital: trust, good will, partnership, faith, and determination. We all know that there are problems that money alone won’t solve. We work on those, too, by bringing people and organizations together to craft strategies to solve our problems.

Partnership:
To increase impact, stretch dollars, share risk, and get things done faster, we work in partnership with the Northwest Arkansas Council, with other foundations, and with nonprofits and agencies who are already leading the way. In 2011, our partnerships focus on Healthy Living and by coordinating our efforts and focusing our investments, our partnerships create positive change faster. There’s less waste, too.

While we spend a lot of energy and money addressing current needs and opportunities, our long-term goal is to be ready for the future – a future we can’t fully imagine nor anticipate. To prepare as best we can, we’re growing our endowment so that when future challenges arise, we won’t be caught flat-footed without resources in hand to meet them effectively.