Allegany County Area Foundation

**About Us** **The Foundation awards scholarships to individuals and grants to community organizations. ACAF works with individuals (and their advisors) wishing to establish funds to support education, communities or specific organizations.** Why a community foundation?? ACAF is part of the community foundation movement that began with the creation of the Cleveland (OH) Foundation in 1914. Community foundations provide a means of leveraging the pooled resources of many individuals in a way that allows for coordinated, efficient investment and grant making activities that are focused on the betterment of a specific community or region. There are now over 700 community foundations in the US, and 1700 worldwide. ****Vision and Persistence**** **Allegany County Area Foundation History** The Allegany County Area Foundation was an early effort to adapt the community foundation model, which had been established primarily in urban areas, to a rural setting combining the talents and resources of our various towns and villages, while relying heavily on volunteers for administrative support. The preliminary planning, including the design of the organizational structure and selection of directors, was a collaborative effort between Cuba attorney, and later county judge, Peter R. Sprague and Wellsville trust officer, and later investment manager, John M. (“Jack”) Carter, with the valuable guidance and encouragement of the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation and its Executive Director Francis Grow. An exploratory meeting of community and business leaders was convened at the Wellsville Country Club on April 12, 1983 to present and discuss the plan, which received a generally favorable response. The organizational meeting was held on September 20, 1983, when the Articles of Incorporation and By-laws were approved by the original directors Kenneth Nielsen, Patricia Regan, James Searle, Allen Schintzius, Harry Graves, Jr., Claudia Kauffman, and Leslie Haggstrom. The officers elected by unanimous vote were: Allen Schintzius, President; Kenneth Nielsen, Vice-President; and Jack Carter, Secretary/Treasurer. A timely start-up grant from the Carnahan-Jackson Foundation covered organizational and early operation expenses. In 1989, the Mary Bishop Scholarship Fund was transferred from a local bank to form the cornerstone of our growing scholarship program. Our first decade was a period of slow progress, as members sought to explain to residents how a type of institution that was unfamiliar to most might enhance the quality of life in our area. In the ensuing years, we have been able to steadily expand our community service grants and scholarship awards as more and more current and former residents have come to embrace the foundation