Dear Friends,

With the rapid pace of globalization, increases in human migration, and advances in telecommunications and internet-based technologies, communities across our planet are more inter-connected and inter-dependent than ever before. Our borders are blurring, causing us to redefine “community” beyond strict geographic terms.

Over the past year, the International Community Foundation (ICF) has demonstrated the power of community philanthropy beyond traditional borders through the collective generosity of its many donors, strategic partners, and volunteers. Nowhere was this more evident than with the partnership that ICF forged with the United Nations Foundation last December to provide relief and assistance to the victims of the tragic tsunami that devastated communities across South Asia. Though the tsunami’s impacts were horrific, the outpouring of goodwill was unprecedented. Using a 1:2 challenge from the United Nations Foundation, ICF brought together eleven community foundations, as well as several companies, schools, employee matching programs, social clubs, and countless individuals to raise over $1.3 million to assist communities across Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Indonesia.

ICF’s ongoing Ties that Bind Us initiative is re-engaging immigrant donors in their communities of origin, as exemplified by our recent grantmaking to Cordoba, Argentina; San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic; Mexico City, Mexico; and Shanghai, China. Through this initiative, ICF has also helped San Diego area residents better appreciate their growing inter-connectedness with communities in the Mixteca and Valle Central regions of Oaxaca, Mexico, due to migration.

Along the Baja California Peninsula, ICF is also actively working with a growing number of Americans who are calling this area their second home. Through philanthropy and volunteerism, they are doing their part to make their adopted communities more livable and sustainable.

On the San Diego–Tijuana border, ICF continues to engage its donors and civic leaders in solving bilateral challenges in the areas of the environment, health, education, community development, the arts, and civic engagement. Through the foundation’s grantmaking and its ongoing donor education and research, ICF continues to discover innovative solutions to improve the quality of life in North America’s largest binational metropolitan region.