The Arizona Community Foundation and its donors and partners are pleased to announce grant, scholarship, and loan distributions for its 2024-25 fiscal year. A total of $135,986,235 was awarded from funds of the Arizona Community Foundation through its seven locations across the state. This is the largest yearly award amount in the foundation’s nearly 50-year history.
ACF and its donors distributed more than $106.6 million across 7,619 grants.
Both foundation-directed and donor-advised grants and scholarships were awarded in five philanthropic areas of investment: Health Innovations, Community Improvement & Development, Environment & Sustainability, Arts & Culture, and Quality Education.
“We are deeply grateful for the generosity of our donors, partners, and community,” said Anna Maria Chávez, CEO and President of the Arizona Community Foundation. “Thanks to their support, we were able to award more funding than ever before in ACF’s history. In these challenging times, the willingness of people to give—and to trust ACF with supporting the causes they care most about—speaks volumes about the strength and compassion of our community.”
With in-state tuition more than doubling in the last 20 years, ACF prioritized the strategic focus area of quality education. ACF awarded grants and scholarships totaling more than $37 million during the year, including $5.7 million in college scholarships for the benefit of 1,595 Arizona students.
The Arizona Community Foundation is the state’s largest independent provider of college scholarships.
At $35 million, grants in the area of Health Innovations received the largest share of distributions, which were awarded to 2,809 organizations and programs in the areas of health, healthcare, medical research, and a variety of human services.
Another strategic priority area for ACF, the environment, received more than $8 million to 533 organizations and programs, including environmental education, renewable resources, conservation, and animal welfare.
“As a nonprofit organization that is fully funded by the generosity of our supporters, we’re grateful for our partnership with Arizona Community Foundation,” said Alessandra Navidad, CEO of the Arizona Animal Welfare League. “Their generosity has had a direct impact on our life-saving programs, from adoptions to our low-cost vet clinic, and has helped create a brighter future for thousands of pets across our state.”
Nearly $20 million went to 766 programs in the category of Community Improvement & Development, which includes economic development, law, justice, public safety, housing, and neighborhood programs.
Nearly $21 million was awarded to 615 Arts & Culture organizations across Arizona, including artists, music, and cultural institutions.
In addition to these grants, 160 nonprofit organizations with dedicated agency endowments managed by the Arizona Community Foundation received their annual distributions, accounting for the remaining $15 million distributed during the year.
ACF is a national leader in impact investing, through which the foundation and its partners USDA Rural Development, Metro Phoenix Affordable Housing Collaborative, LISC, and others invested an additional $3.1 million in below-market loan funding to four organizations in the fiscal year.
These funds work alongside traditional grantmaking accomplishing two important goals: producing measurable social impact, including affordable housing which is the third strategic priority for ACF, and building resources for future investing. Working together with a variety of capital partners, grantmakers, and nonprofit leaders, ACF’s impact investing program produces capital solutions that are more robust than grants alone.
For more information on ACF visit azfoundation.org.
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