Community Foundation Resource Collection (Archived)

Special collection

This collection, formerly the CF Insights Knowledge Center, was actively curated from 2015 until 2023 when Candid transferred CF Insights to the Council on Foundations. The resources continue to be accessible, but this collection is no longer actively curated.

Looking for new and updated CF Insights resources? Please visit cof.org/cfinsights.


Archived date: August 30, 2023

Collection title: CF Insights Knowledge Center (former); Community Foundation Resource Collection (current)

Collection URL: https://cfinsights.issuelab.org

Availability: 2015-2023 (Candid)

Title Count: 552 Titles

Description: This collection asks a very simple but important question: "What if each community foundation could know what all community foundations collectively know?" This collection features research produced and funded by community foundations, and other resources relevant to the field.

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Creating a Chicago Regional Building Energy Efficiency System

December 1, 2009

The Chicago area's homes and offices must be brought up to 21st century standards for energy efficiency, both to save money and to reduce climate altering green house gas emissions. Federal money available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) can jumpstart the creation of a market and infrastructure for accomplishing this, while utility and other financing can sustain the work over the long term.In launching this effort, the Chicago area does not need to reinvent the wheel; successful programs in other states offer principles and models for how to proceed. The Chicago area should immediately begin a two-track process for creating a Chicago Area Building Energy Efficiency System. The first track would identify funding, including ARRA funds to quickly ramp up existing programs to launch significant weatherization initiatives in appropriate locations around the seven-county region. The second track would begin designing the network or institution to carry on this work over the long term.While there are significant hurdles, creating such a system would meet the needs of homeowners, municipalities, utilities, suppliers, and citizens. By strategically combining available resources and existing knowledge, the Chicago area can undertake the massive work of making its physical structure more energy efficient, in the process bringing environmental and economic benefits to the eight million people who live in this region.

Driven to Spend: Pumping Dollars Out of Our Households and Communities

June 1, 2005

This report examines the impacts of transportation spending on households in the 28 metro areas for which the federal government collects expenditure data and of rising gas prices on both households and regional economies. It finds that households in regions that have invested in public transportation reap financial benefits from having access to affordable mobility options, even as gas prices rise, and that regions with public transit are losing less per household from the increase in gas prices than those without transit options.