About the Foundation

The Eastern Shore is a place worth investing in: its people, its working landscape, its small towns, its future.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia Community Foundation exists to help transform the care so many people feel for this place into lasting good. We are the only community foundation focused solely on Accomack and Northampton counties. Everything we do, we do right here.

What We Do

Three things make up our daily work.

We help donors give well, and give lastingly. Individuals, families, and businesses establish endowed funds through ESVCF, for the causes they care most about, or for the Eastern Shore broadly. Gifts entrusted to us are carefully invested, and a portion is granted out each year. A single gift becomes a steady source of support, year after year, in perpetuity.

We make grants to local nonprofits. Through both our discretionary community grantmaking and the funds donors have established, we support nonprofit work across seven focus areas on the Shore.

We offer guidance and stewardship. Donors, professional advisors, families, and businesses work with us to think carefully about how charitable resources can do the most good, and how they can keep doing good for generations.

Where we Focus

Our grantmaking supports nonprofits serving the Shore in seven areas:

• Arts & Culture - community engagement through the arts and the preservation of local heritage.

• Child, Family and Social Services - improving life for our most vulnerable residents, especially through support for basic needs.

• Community Vitality - the physical spaces, services, and programs that strengthen civic life and connection.

• Economic Resilience - helping individuals overcome barriers to self-sufficiency, including housing and employment.

• Education - preparing children and adults for academic, career, and lifelong success.

• Environment - protecting our natural resources and advancing environmental stewardship.

• Health - expanding access to healthcare and programs that promote well-being.

Our Story

The Foundation began with a challenge. In 2004, the Norfolk Foundation (now the Hampton Roads Community Foundation) offered $2 million in capital to launch a community foundation on the Eastern Shore, if local residents could raise $4 million more within four years. The Shore answered, and the goal was exceeded in just three.

That early affiliation with Hampton Roads Community Foundation remains the basis of our structure today. It gives ESVCF access to world-class investment management while keeping decision-making rooted here. We launched as an LLC in 2004, received 501(c)(3) status in 2006, and began making grants directly through our own programs in 2009.

Since then, ESVCF has awarded over $5 million in competitive community grants, distributed millions more through donor-advised, designated, and field-of-interest funds, and built more than $16 million in permanent charitable assets working for the Shore, now and well into the future.

Our Mission

We enrich lives on the Eastern Shore of Virginia by helping individuals, families, and organizations fulfill their charitable goals and supporting nonprofit organizations so that our beloved community thrives.

Our Vision

The Eastern Shore of Virginia Community Foundation is a leading community organization supporting nonprofits to develop a thriving Eastern Shore of Virginia. A thriving community:

• Promotes a culture of philanthropy

• Fosters economic opportunity for all

• Meets the needs of families and children (education, health, housing, social)

• Sustains nonprofit community organizations

• Preserves and values local culture and heritage

• Stewards natural assets

Our Values

• Collaboration - bringing people together

• Integrity - fostering transparency, honesty, and respect

• Justice - advancing fairness, impartiality and equal opportunity

• Knowledge - listening, learning, innovating, appreciating lived experience

• Stewardship - providing excellent, accountable administration and guardianship