The first community foundation was established in 1914 in Cleveland, Ohio, when the founder wanted to enhance the efficiency and impact in the community, through pooling resources from a diversity of donors, not just the wealthy few, into permanent endowments, which would be under the control of citizen boards.
Shortly after, they began to mushroom around the USA and Canada, while since the mid-1970s they appeared in Europe and since the mid-1990s worldwide. Community foundations seek to reflect the will of the community and to serve the needs of community members as they defined those needs. They offer the opportunity to citizens to get involved in their local communities and to contribute shaping it according to their visions, thus encouraging participatory democracy, civic engagement and active citizenship.
The phenomenon of community foundations is quite new in Serbia. The first community foundation appeared in 2013. Today, there are three established community foundations: Obrenovac Youth Foundation, Foundation Step Forward from Zaječar and Front Foundation from Novi Pazar; and four in the process of establishment Community Foundation Niš, Community Foundation Pančevo, Community Foundation Stara Pazova, Community Foundation Šabac. The project endeavours to understand the purposes and missions of Serbian community foundations, their capacities to handle multiple roles, their ability and willingness to be vehicles for greater civic engagement and social change in their localities. The project also seeks to shed light on the key individuals, their motives and reasons for establishing / engaging with the foundation, their values, perceptions and attitudes, as well as the influence that engagement with the foundation in question has on them, particularly in relation to empowerment.