The Arizona Community Foundation (ACF) is a left-of-center grantmaking organization and one of the largest community foundations in the state of Arizona. The ACF has approximately $903 million in assets as of March 2020 and has provided $853 million in grants since 1978. ¹²

ACF has received funding from multiple left-of-center foundations, including the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. ³⁴⁵

The Arizona Community Foundation’s current president and chief executive officer, Steven G. Seleznow, is a former deputy director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s U.S. Program in Education. Seleznow is married to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s CEO Nicole Taylor. ⁶⁷

Founding

The Arizona Community Foundation is a nonprofit organization that provides grants to other nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and educational institutions primarily in the state of Arizona. ACF was established in 1978 by a group of local banks including Arizona Bank, First National Bank of Arizona, and the Valley National Bank of Arizona. The organization opened its first office in Phoenix, Arizona in 1979. As of 2021, ACF has six offices across the state. ⁸

The Arizona Community Foundation is one of the largest community foundations in the state of Arizona. ACF reports having $903 million in assets as of March 2020 and has provided $853 million in grants since 1978. ⁹¹⁰

Funding

The Arizona Community Foundation receives funding from corporations, individual donors, and private foundations. Shortly after its inception in 1981, ACF had a total endowment of $840,000. This grew to more than $1.5 million in 1982, and $2.7 million in 1983 when the organization made 20 grants totalling more than $100,000. The ACF endowment continued to grow to $4.5 million in 1984 and $5.5 million in 1985. ¹¹

In 1986, ACF began a “long-standing relationship” with the Ford Foundation, one of the largest foundations in the United States and a major funder of left-of-center advocacy. That year, ACF won a $500,000 challenge grant from the Ford Foundation and completed the $1 million match in 15 months after soliciting more than 50 other contributions from private foundations, individual donors, and corporations. In 1986, the ACF endowment reached $12.2 million. ¹²

The Ford Foundation provided ACF with another $500,000 grant in 1987 that was intended to support ACF’s Arizona Children’s Trust Fund, a statewide endowment fund specifically for children. The Arizona Children’s Trust Fund raised $1 million in 1988 to match the original challenge grant. ¹³

The ACF endowment continued to grow over the years with the organization having a total endowment of just under $33 million in 1991, a combined endowment of $320 million in 2001, and a total endowment close to $500 million in 2005. ¹⁴

In 2015, ACF reported total revenue of just under $98.5 million, with $71 million coming from contributions. In 2016, this grew to $146.6 million, with $122 million coming from contributions, and in 2017, this grew to just over $129 million, with $67 million coming from contributions. In 2018, the last year for which data is available, ACF reported just under $130 million in revenue, $87 million of which came from contributions. ¹⁵ ACF’s assets also increased over this period from $529 million in 2015 to $717 million in 2018. ACF, along with its affiliates, awarded a total of $183,125,928 in grants, scholarships, and loan distributions in 2020. ¹⁶¹⁷

The Arizona Community Foundation is currently funding the Arizona Republic, a daily newspaper based in the state. ACF awarded a three-year grant to the outlet to increase its investigative reporting into the Arizona foster care system. ¹⁸

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, a private foundation that supports environmentalist causes and population control programs, provided ACF with a grant of $40,000 in 2016 and another grant of $250,000 in 2017. The Rockefeller Foundation, a major funder of liberal advocacy and public policy efforts, provided ACF with a $1.75 million grant in 2019, and the Ford Foundation granted $400,000 to ACF in 2006 and 2008. ¹⁹²⁰²¹

People

The current president and chief executive officer of the Arizona Community Foundation is Steven G. Seleznow. Seleznow previously worked as partner and chief investment officer at Venture Philanthropy Partners and worked for approximately five years as the deputy director of the U.S. Program in Education, a program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The program spends hundreds of millions of dollars to promote and implement the highly controversial Common Core initiative, which seeks to establish federal education benchmarks.. ²²²³

Seleznow is married to Nicole Taylor, the CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, a left-of-center grantmaking organization that conducts most of its grantmaking through donor-advised fund accounts. ²⁴

1. “About,” Arizona Community Foundation, accessed June 21, 2021, https://www.azfoundation.org/About/Putting-Arizona-First.
2. “About,” Arizona Community Foundation, accessed June 21, 2021, https://www.azfoundation.org/About/Financial-Information.
3. “You Searched for Arizona+Community+Foundation,” The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, accessed June 21, 2021, https://www.packard.org/?s=arizona%2Bcommunity%2Bfoundation.
4. “Arizona Community Foundation, Inc. 2019,” The Rockefeller Foundation, June 15, 2021, https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/grant/grant-2019-154/.
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13. “About,” Arizona Community Foundation, accessed June 21, 2021, https://www.azfoundation.org/About/Mission-Values-History#698288-1980s.
14. “About,” Arizona Community Foundation, accessed June 21, 2021, https://www.azfoundation.org/About/Mission-Values-History#698290-2000s.
15. Sisi Wei Mike Tigas, “Arizona Community Foundation – Nonprofit Explorer,” ProPublica, May 9, 2013, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/860348306.
16. Sisi Wei Mike Tigas, “Arizona Community Foundation – Nonprofit Explorer,” ProPublica, May 9, 2013, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/860348306.
17. 2021 Staff | on February 13, “Arizona Community Foundation and Donors Distribute Record $183 Million in 2020 Grants, Scholarships, and Loans,” Signals AZ, February 18, 2021, https://www.signalsaz.com/articles/arizona-community-foundation-and-donors-distribute-record-183-million-in-2020-grants-scholarships-and-loans/.
18. “ACF Funding in-Depth Reporting on Arizona’s Foster Care Crisis,” Arizona Community Foundation, accessed June 21, 2021, https://www.azfoundation.org/About/News-Events/View-Article/ArticleId/161/ACF-announces-three-year-grant-to-support-The-Arizona-Republic-investigative-reporting-on-child-welfare-in-Arizona.
19. “You Searched for Arizona+Community+Foundation,” The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, accessed June 21, 2021, https://www.packard.org/?s=arizona%2Bcommunity%2Bfoundation.
20. “Arizona Community Foundation, Inc. 2019,” The Rockefeller Foundation, June 15, 2021, https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/grant/grant-2019-154/.
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22. “Steve Seleznow,” cof.org, accessed June 21, 2021, https://www.cof.org/sites/default/files/documents/files/steve-seleznow_0.pdf .
23. “Editorial: Gates Foundation Failures Show Philanthropists Shouldn’t Be Setting America’s Public School Agenda,” Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2016), https://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-gates-education-20160601-snap-story.html.
24. STANFORD magazine, “Giving Away Silicon Valley’s Billions,” STANFORD magazine, accessed June 21, 2021, https://stanfordmag.org/contents/giving-away-silicon-valleys-billions-svcf.