National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations were approved by the Council on Foundations' and adopted by the community foundation field in late 2000 in order to: guide sound policies and accountable practices; distinguish the field from others; and build capacity to carry out community foundations' missions. To support community foundations' understanding of and ability to comply with National Standards, a Standards Best Practices Committee—composed of community foundation practitioners—was formed to create and collect tools and resources to support widespread adoption of and compliance with National Standards. The chief resource identified by the committee to aid community foundations' compliance with National Standards is the Standards & Effective Practices Database, which is encompassed in this website. The database focuses on all 43 standards. The website contains descriptions of each standard, types of methodologies, examples of effective practices in use, a practice assessment tool, key design elements of successful practices and evaluation components. (Definitions of key terms, which are underlined in the previous sentence, are available by clicking on the relevant word.)
As indicated in the columns below, the database is searchable in four ways-by standard, by methodology, by example and by keyword, all of which are all interlinked. For example, viewing an individual standard automatically produces a toolbar that points to related methodologies and examples as well as practice assessment tools, key design elements and evaluation components related to that standard.
