How to Set the Foundation for Community with Peter Panepento
About This Episode
This is a story about invisible infrastructure—the kind you only notice when it's gone.
Peter Panepento started his career covering planning board meetings for a weekly newspaper in upstate New York, watching in real time as the binding agents of community life dissolved. Now he runs a communications agency working with community foundations, institutions that have operated in nearly every American community for over a hundred years but remain mysterious to most people. The puzzle he's trying to solve: How do you create recognition for something designed to fade into the background?
Panepento's solution was counterintuitive. Instead of emphasizing how different each of the 900 community foundations is, he found the common thread: they all "Make More Possible." It's a template simple enough to be universal but flexible enough to contain multitudes. His team also conducted the first field-wide benchmarking survey of community foundation communications and found something troubling—93% lack adequate budgets, half expect resources to decrease, and most have no crisis plans. At the exact moment when clear communication has become existentially important, the people responsible for it are being asked to do more with less.
Peter joins Carrie this week to explore two models of community-building that work precisely because they're ordinary. The Chicago Community Trust hosts "On the Table"—thousands of simultaneous conversations over meals where neighbors discuss what matters. The Black Belt Community Foundation in Selma, Alabama, has moved over $100 million in 20 years by giving actual grant-making power to local volunteers in each county. They were practicing trust-based philanthropy before anyone coined the term. These aren't flashy programs—they're deliberately low-tech interventions designed to restore something simple: the habit of looking your neighbors in the eye and finding common ground.
The broader lesson isn't really about community foundations at all. It's about the challenge of making essential infrastructure visible. Whether it's local journalism, public health systems, or civic institutions, the things that hold society together tend to be the things we notice only when they break. We're living through what might be called the great unbundling of American civic life—the institutions that once created shared spaces have either disappeared or fragmented into a thousand digital pieces. Community foundations are one of the few remaining institutions with the potential to be what Panepento calls "community conveners." But they can only play that role if people know they exist.
Links & Notes
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Carrie Fox:
Hi, and thanks for joining us for this episode of the Mission Forward Podcast. You are joining us during season 11, now with well over a hundred shows under our belt, featuring impact leaders from all over the world who are committed to moving missions forward in smart and creative ways. These are people who think about the power of communications in everything they do, whether they are professional communicators by training or not. And today's guest just happens to be one of the folks who is a communicator by training and a good friend too.
I am glad you are here for today's show as we are going to spend some time in this episode talking about the power of communications to move missions forward and why it really matters to have your audience understand what you're trying to say and what's at stake if your message is a muddy one. Today's guest is Peter Panepento, journalist by trade who now runs a fabulous communications and PR agency called Turn Two. I have turned to Peter many times over the years to serve as a partner to us on campaigns, and he's turned to us too. Most recently on a project in service of communicating about the value of community foundations. Organizations that I hold a particular love of having been a former board member of a community foundation in my community.
Peter is here today to share a bit more about why community foundations are such an important thread in strong communities and what he's learned through some brand new research that connects communications with community foundations. Peter, we have some good stuff to talk about today. So welcome to the show.
Peter Panepento:
I'm so excited to be here, and I learned something else that we had in common that we both served on a community foundation board in the past. I did not know that about you, Carrie.
Carrie Fox:
Oh yes.
Peter Panepento:
So—
Carrie Fox:
Well, I was on the Montgomery County, Maryland board for many years.
Peter Panepento:
Fantastic. And I was in neighboring Howard County, Maryland.
Carrie Fox:
Oh, nice.
Peter Panepento:
So, yes.
Carrie Fox:
Nice. All right, great. Well then certainly we understand the value of community foundations, and I'm glad to be able to talk a bit more about that value today. I gave folks a very quick intro to you, but let's start by having you share just a bit more about your work and why you find this intersection of communicating about community so important.
Peter Panepento:
That's a great question. And it starts with the beginning of my career when I worked in community journalism. So I started out out of college working at a weekly newspaper outside of Rochester, New York, covering everything from planning board meetings to school board meetings to Kiwanis events and fundraisers and really saw it in very early in my career, the value of strong communities and of having gathering places for people to come together and share information and really get to know each other.
And I think what we've seen happen over the past 15, 20 years is a lot of that has eroded in a lot of communities. And I think that community foundations especially play a very important role now in bringing communities together and helping to restore some of the trust that people should be having with their neighbors. And so as my career evolved from journalism at the community level to the Chronicle of Philanthropy and now as somebody who leads an agency that focuses on community foundations, that's been a bit of a common thread through all of it is the power of community to help inspire people and to help bring people together to achieve a common good.
Carrie Fox:
I love that. And it's been a common thread here too, not just on this season, but last season. We talk about community and community foundations quite a bit. So for those listening, you might remember we've had Dr. John Paul Lederach on, who is an international peace builder. He talks about the power of bridging divides via community and the important role that community foundations play in that. Just a few weeks ago we had Rich Harwood on who has a new book about the civic path and the role that community foundations play. So it's funny, it feels like Peter, every road leads back to the community foundation. And yet so many people don't know about their community foundations. And that was a big piece of this research—how well do people know and understand what a community foundation does, is that right?
Peter Panepento:
Absolutely. And that's been a common challenge for the community foundations that we've worked with over the years. So part of our work is working with a coalition of community foundations through the Community Foundation Awareness Initiative. There's 170 community foundations in that group. And we've had the pleasure of serving as the national communications and PR agency for that group for close to 10 years. And since 2020, when the pandemic hit, we've actually been convening community foundation communicators twice a month on Zoom to just listen to them, give them a space to connect with each other, ask questions, and share information.
And one of the common threads that have come out of that and one of the common pain points that all of these organizations have is that if you stop somebody on the street and ask them what a community foundation is, probably nine out of ten of those people don't have any idea. Unless they've been directly connected to a community foundation in some way, they don't really understand what they are. They don't understand their intrinsic value and they don't understand what they stand for.
And so in the work you and I have done together and in our ongoing work, we've really been trying to untangle the barriers that are keeping community foundations from having the same level of public understanding that something like the United Way or Feeding America or the Boys and Girls Club—national organizations that have a presence in communities across the country—have, that community foundations which have been doing this work for over a hundred years don't really have. And I think part of it comes from the fact that they try to reach a lot of different audiences. Part of it is they do a lot of different things, and it's really hard for them to distill it in a few words. And part of it is they've never until very recently tried to come up with an overarching national narrative and brand that people can easily understand and get their arms around.
Carrie Fox:
One of the great leaders of community foundations in our region is Anna Hargrave at Montgomery County. And she was the one who said this to me first, probably about 10 years ago. And I've heard people say this so many times. If you know one community foundation, you know one community foundation, which literally means every single one of them is different, which is probably why it's hard to have a single narrative. So how do you crack that nut as a communicator? How are you helping them figure that out?
Peter Panepento:
Well, the way we're trying to do that is through coming up with a national level branding campaign and testing messages that resonate whether you're in a small town in Mississippi or Missouri or out west somewhere or in a big city like New York or DC, something that cuts across all of the different demographics in our country and all of the different people that connect with community foundations. To have a common thread, some common language and some repeatable language that is very accessible, that people can start to say, "Oh you know, such and such community foundation. I know what that is" without even having to have somebody give me a long speech about what it is.
So what we've been working on in partnership with you and a lot of others is developing a set of tools that make it possible for community foundations to talk in a similar accessible language to donors, professional advisors, grantees, decision makers in their community. And do it in a consistent enough way where it becomes natural and it becomes something that people are exposed to repeatedly so that the light bulb goes off and people can start to have a conversation that doesn't involve a long lead-in of education about what this institution is before they can even say or talk about something meaningful with each other.
Carrie Fox:
Can you give us an example of how some of the community foundation leaders are starting to do that? Talk about their work in a way that connects with that audience.
Peter Panepento:
Sure. Part of it has been really starting to strip away a lot of the intrinsic jargon that really extends beyond community foundations throughout philanthropy and the nonprofit world. And starting to really put themselves in the shoes of the different people that they need to connect with and speak in ways that are very easy to understand and accessible and that invite conversation. That's the other piece of it is not just broadcasting out your elevator pitch, but positioning it in a way where it speaks directly to the concerns of the audience or the people that you're trying to connect to and really meeting people halfway.
The campaign we're working on is something where about 50 community foundations nationally are now using similar creative materials around a tagline "Make More Possible." And it's designed in a way where individual community foundations can customize the creative and the language that they use to make it relate and the images that they use to make it relate to their own community and their own brand, but it's focus group tested, it's proven language that people throughout the country can easily get their arms around and understand. And it's presented in a way where even a small community foundation with a small budget can access it and use it and create something that helps elevate their own individual brands as well.
Carrie Fox:
I love a good turn of phrase and I love "Make More Possible." I've seen the visuals, I've seen the campaign, I've heard the campaign. It's very compelling. Tell the audience who has not seen Make More Possible—what does it mean? What does it mean to make more possible?
Peter Panepento:
So community foundations do a lot of things. So they make grants to local organizations, they help individual donors and family donors expand their own philanthropy locally. They partner with other philanthropic organizations and nonprofits around civic activities. They respond in times of crisis in their community. They wear a lot of hats. But the common thread through all of that is that they work to make more possible in their communities, whether it's through their grant making, whether it's through their leadership, whether it's through their power to bring people together.
And the Make More Possible campaign spotlights that by almost putting a blank between "Make More" and "Possible." And community foundations can fill in that blank with an issue area that they work in, a connection that they make, an initiative that they're doing. And by repeating that over and over again and showing the different ways that they in partnership with their communities are making more possible, it is starting to resonate and really start to elevate the way people understand what they do and understand that they're often kind of the behind the scenes glue that's doing these things.
It reminds me of that old BASF commercial that was probably from the 80s where, you know, "We don't make the tennis ball, we make it bounce higher, we don't make the glove, we make it warmer," you know, just kind of showing that they're kind of the silent force behind all of these things that you know and touch every day, but take for granted that there's somebody out there actually making this more effective, or in this case, making things more possible.
Carrie Fox:
Peter, we're gonna look at the survey in a minute, but first I want to just acknowledge how brilliant of a strategy it was because again for those listening, if you go back to the beginning, there are 900 community foundations around the country. And if you know one, you know one. And so that means you're trying to find a unique value proposition that is the thread between 900 organizations. And you found something through a lot of research, a lot of listening, a lot of learning, that there is a very important thread there to hold on to that any one of those community foundations has a promise and is a promise that they can make more possible in their own community based on how they operate. That is a strong and compelling brand promise. So well done in terms of building that campaign and presenting it out to the community foundations because I know it has been very compelling and effective for so many of them.
Peter Panepento:
Well, thank you. And we didn't do it alone. You played a role in helping us get there too.
Carrie Fox:
Let's look at the survey because I've got up in front of me a very impressive kind of executive summary that has 10 survey highlights. This is a first ever field-wide what you call the communications benchmarking survey that provided a significant amount of information about how community foundations build their comms strategies, what challenges they're facing, and what to do about that information. So I might first have you give an overview of the survey, what you were setting out to learn, and maybe then go through some of those highlights of what you did learn.
Peter Panepento:
I mentioned earlier how we work with that group of 170 community foundations and we bring community foundation communicators together regularly to share questions and advice with each other. One of the common things that has come up as a barrier is that there's no real data about how community foundation communications and marketing teams operate. So often somebody will raise a question, say, "Are any of you doing this? Or how do you structure this?" And there isn't anything to really lean on that says, "Oh, the majority of community foundations are doing it this way and they're doing it for this reason," or even being able to benchmark your budget and the number of people who are in your communications shop and the salaries you pay. There was really no data to help organizations really understand, "All right, well, how do I stack up with other organizations of my size? Am I investing more or less than I should be?"
So we wanted to create something that would be very useful to communications teams to be able to see where they stack up and be able to make smarter decisions about their investments, their tactics, and their approaches to things. And somewhat selfishly, as somebody who supports these organizations, I'm hoping they can use this data to state the case for more investments in best practices that can help them operate more effectively too. It's a lot easier for a community foundation person to go in and make the case for a crisis communication strategy if they say, you know, "70% of our colleagues are doing this and we're not. We need to do this." So we were hoping that there would be some takeaways from the data that would help folks make smarter—make the case for more investment and help leaders of organizations understand where they may need to make some additional investments or changes to the way that they operate to make sure that they're communicating as effectively as possible.
Carrie Fox:
Well, tell us about some of your findings. And it's fine if you want to pull it up or reference it. I've got it in front of me too. But what surprised you or what's sticking with you in terms of what you learned?
Peter Panepento:
It's going to sound negative, but there were a lot of gaps that came out of this research that really have risen to the top of the pile in terms of how we're talking about this. And even how it's resonating with people now that the data is out there. First, over 90%, I think 93% of the community foundations who responded to the survey said that they don't have the budget that they need to support their objectives as an organization. And I think perhaps more troubling than that is about half of the organizations, almost exactly half of the organizations that responded said that they're expecting their budgets to either remain the same or decrease over the next two years, their communications budgets.
At a time when I would say communications is more paramount than it's—you know, we overstate saying things are more than they've ever been before. But I think we can definitively say that we're in a moment where effective communications for philanthropic organizations of all types is critical. Knowing that people don't feel like they have the resources, and on top of that, that they don't think it's going to get better in the next two years was a pretty troubling takeaway from this.
The other thing that really stood out for us is the lack of investment in some of the preparation that's needed to communicate effectively. Community foundations who we surveyed for this do a lot of rapid response communications, whether it's related to a disaster or an event that hits their communities, whether it's trying to react to something that's happening in the news and they need to communicate very effectively about how that's impacting their community, to even things that are directly impacting their organizations. We were surprised by the number of community foundations that don't invest in or don't have a plan for how to respond in a crisis and don't have a protocol or a plan in place.
We were also pleasantly surprised by the number that are using AI to assist with their communications, whether it's helping with video and visual creation or content creation. But again, there's not a lot of policy or forethought in terms of how these are being used. And I think that creates a lot of risks for organizations.
Carrie Fox:
I found the AI piece really interesting too. The top line says community foundations know they need AI tools, but often lack the time, plans, and protocols to implement them effectively. And that's a good example of Peter, what you and I were talking about at the top, which is that could be said about just about every organization right now. We know we need certain things to evolve and adopt. And yet we don't invest in them. So what do you do with this information, right? Now that you know these things, how do you support, whether that be community foundations or any one of the organizations you work with, to realize that they need to proactively close some of those gaps?
Peter Panepento:
It's really challenging when you're moving from crisis to crisis and feeling understaffed to take that step back and say, you know, if we take the time to put some thought into how we might approach something and put a plan in place or a protocol in place that allows you to do that, it will actually save you time and make you more effective and resilient in the face of adversity moving forward. I mean, that's the case for doing it, but it's also the thing that stands in your way from doing it too, right? Is that you are feeling the stress of what's happening around you and being asked to do a lot of things already and maybe not having the time or the bandwidth to really take a step back and put that in place.
So I think a lot of organizations would benefit from either carving out some time or some budget to take a step back, to get some outside resources, to work together with other organizations and maybe co-create something that will give them the tools and that thing in their back pocket that they need to be able to move quickly and effectively and confidently when they're faced with a big challenge.
Carrie Fox:
Right, right. And what's important, I think, to reinforce about that, and I've seen you do this really well, is that there is traditional crisis planning, having a crisis strategy, knowing who's on your crisis team, knowing where to go when certain things happen. And then there's the proactive reputation management and building that can actually support you when a crisis hits, right? So that reputation management and growth can be sometimes more important or just as important as the formal crisis communication strategy, right? You have to be proactive in how you're building and managing and protecting your brand just as much as you need that plan on what you do when the crisis happens.
Because we all know and now the times that we're living in is proof of this, we can't predict what's right around the corner. So we could sit all day long and come up with the crisis strategies. It doesn't mean that any of those scenarios will play out. Right. So closing those gaps in ways back to what you just said about the campaign at the top, right? That build up trust in our brand, build up trust in our spokespeople can help weather the storm when the storm comes. Do you find that too?
Peter Panepento:
That's absolutely true. So having a clear message that you're visiting and repeating internally that you're training your team on how to speak authentically in their own voice, but have it connect to the organization's brand. And how to actively listen in the community as you're talking to people so that you can actually listen to concerns and connect it back to something in your core message is really foundational to all of this. And to your point, when you take that time, when you take the effort to really be intentional about how you're communicating and do it regularly and repeat it, it builds the muscle and it builds the resilience that you need to really be able to communicate effectively and clearly whether something great is happening or something terrible is happening or anything in between.
And so much of what makes an organization an effective brand or have an effective message is taking the time to really talk internally and provide spaces for people to work on that and refine it and feel very comfortable with it and do that regularly, and make sure that you're reinforcing it and rewarding the activity of doing that.
Carrie Fox:
Yeah. We're running out of time, but there's a couple questions I really want to touch on. And one of them is first just a connecting point. So we are doing this, as I said at the top, season eleven. And season eleven's theme is about saying hello, saying goodbye, and making the most of the in-between space. And why I wanted to talk with you at the center of this series is community foundations are really good at making the most of that space that they operate in, right? Really understanding deeply a community, a community's needs, a community's opportunities, and acting on them. And you've really touched on the heart of that through the campaign that you've been working with.
But I want to also touch on the hello piece because when we think about so many folks we know right now who are making a move from one city to another or starting over in a new job in a new place. What I will often advise people is if you're thinking about moving somewhere, or if you have just moved somewhere, check out the local community foundation because there's never a place you will find a better pulse on what your community stands for, is about, is worth investing in, then you will by looking at your community foundation. So don't forget about that. Listeners, if you haven't already checked in on your own community foundation, do so because they are remarkable. They are really at the heart of a community.
And then where we're going to focus here in our last couple questions, Peter, is on that space between that communities hold, right? That when a community is in transition, when a community is facing crisis, when a community is seeking how to bridge divides, that often a community foundation is there. And I don't know if there's a story you could share, an example you can share of what that has looked like and what you have seen of a community foundation that has effectively helped bridge divides in their community.
Peter Panepento:
So there are a couple of examples, some of them big, some of them small. I'll start with kind of a big grand thing that is happening in Chicago and Columbus and some other places too. And these are called On the Table at the Chicago Community Trust and the Big Table at the Columbus Foundation. These are ongoing efforts. These have been going on for 10 years or more in those two communities, but they are annual events that the community foundation hosts that essentially invites people in their communities to invite people together over a meal with discussion prompts and opportunities for people in their communities to come together and talk about important issues in a safe space over a meal. Some of these are happening around people's kitchen tables, some of them are happening out in public places.
But what they are trying to do, and I think I would argue they are doing, is creating a space for people throughout their community, young and old, conservative and liberal and everywhere in between, to come together to talk about their community and do it in a way that's very intentional and helps people look each other in the eye and find their common humanity. And I would encourage people to take a look at what the Big Table is at the Columbus Foundation, what On the Table is in Chicago and in other communities, and see if that's something that they could replicate in either a big way or a small way through their work, regardless of their mission.
And the most powerful example I've seen of just a community foundation that has put community at the center of its work from day one is the Black Belt Community Foundation, which is based in Selma, Alabama, and stretches across about a dozen rural counties in Alabama. This is a community that had been very underinvested in over basically its entire history. And about twenty years ago, they got some outside private foundation money to start a local philanthropy. And what they've done since day one and they've continued to do 20 plus years later is put community at the center of every decision they make.
So they've created this community associates effort where it's local volunteers in each county who essentially serve as quasi-boards for the foundation, but also make decisions about where the foundation's grant money is invested in their counties. And so they become a kitchen cabinet for the foundation, but they also hold grant-making power. They organize events, they bring people together, they do it at the very grassroots local level. They've helped really guide the ethos of the foundation from day one.
And 20 years in, they've raised and granted over $100 million into the community, almost all of it community-led. Very little of what they've raised over the years has actually been endowed money. They are essentially working with their community to figure out what the biggest priority is at any given time and mobilizing resources to do it. And I've had the pleasure of visiting down there twice and being able to kind of experience the way that foundation operates. And there are some incredible lessons that come out of what they do and how they do it that I think can really translate well to other organizations that are really looking to lean into trust-based approaches to their work. They were doing trust-based philanthropy, I think, before anybody had coined the term, and it just has been very intentional and woven into their fabric since the very beginning.
Carrie Fox:
Those are two great stories. And those stories, Peter, remind me why community foundations aren't just the heart of a community the way we talked about earlier, but you know, back to your roots, you started as a local journalist, right? So right now there's a movement to read local. There's a movement to shop local. And there can and should be a movement to give local, right? Local is so much at the heart of our democracy, of our nation, and community foundations are there every step of the way.
So thank you. Really. Thank you for investing in and supporting community foundations for the better part of a decade now and for doing this research and sharing some of it with us and letting us at Mission Partners be with you for part of the ride. It has been so meaningful to our team to be part of this work with you.
Peter Panepento:
Thank you so much. And it's been—I'm thrilled for the opportunity to talk about this with you and to work alongside you on this important work. So thank you.
Carrie Fox:
Of course. All right, we're going to end with a couple fun questions that we have been asking everyone at the end of this season. So we'll just dive right in. Given that we're doing hellos, goodbyes, and the space between, Peter, do you like to say hello with a hug or a handshake?
Peter Panepento:
I'm gonna say a hug.
Carrie Fox:
Okay.
Peter Panepento:
Yes.
Carrie Fox:
What is your favorite language or way to say hello?
Peter Panepento:
I think it's just saying an informal "hey." Just something that's very accessible and friendly.
Carrie Fox:
Cool. Hey. Okay. What will you never leave home without?
Peter Panepento:
It's gonna be a boring answer about my cell phone.
Carrie Fox:
It's the answer of the season. And in this big game of life, Peter, what do you hope to leave behind?
Peter Panepento:
I hope to be able to leave the organizations and the people that I come in contact with richer for the experience, whether that's through the work I do or whether it's through the individual relationships and what I can give to those.
Carrie Fox:
Well, I can prove you are doing just that. We see the fruits of the work that you have done and it's pretty impressive. So thanks for being with us today, for sharing this report. We're going to link to it in the show notes so folks can go check it out and we'll give some ways that they can connect with their local community foundations too.
Peter Panepento:
Terrific. Thanks so much.
Carrie Fox:
Alright, thanks for being here and that brings us to the end of this episode of Mission Forward. If you like what you heard today, or if it sparked something for you, then hit share in your podcast feed and send it along. And while you're there, leave us a rating or a review so we can keep getting this show in front of more people like you who can benefit from it. Wherever you are, wherever you've been, and wherever you are going, keep moving your mission forward. And I'll see you here next time on the Mission Forward Podcast.
