As a member of the Virginia Volunteerism Network, the Community Foundation for a greater Richmond has the mission of bringing people together to transform their community through informed and inspired philanthropy. Serving the greater Richmond region (specifically, Chesterfield, Colonial Heights, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, Hopewell, Powhatan, Petersburg, Richmond City), the Community Foundation’s vision is a vibrant region where all individuals and families can thrive and prosper, and their motto is, “Together, we do more good.”

The Community Foundation offers a full range of services to support the volunteerism sector, including the regional Volunteer Center for the greater Richmond area, CFengage. CFengage is free for all to use and offers a great entry point for nonprofits and volunteers. Volunteer engagement gets more people involved, it builds civic muscle, and creates ripples of impact and connection. Their goal is to be an accessible resource so reaching a broad audience is key and CFengage is a vital component of the Community Foundation’s goal of creating real and sustainable change in their community.

In 2024, the Community Foundation facilitated more than 14,000 connections between community members and local volunteer opportunities. “We often hear from volunteers that they want to get involved but don’t know where to start, while hearing from nonprofits that they struggle to reach new audiences of potential volunteers,” says Gail Cavallaro, Director of Civic Engagement for the Community Foundation for a greater Richmond. “We are the bridge in our community that helps make those connections for meaningful impact.” Another example of the strength of the Community Foundation’s network was their response to the water crisis in Richmond in early 2025. They were able to mobilize 60 volunteers in less than 8 hours to help distribute clean water when the community faced a dire need.

The Community Foundation believes that volunteers should be informed before acting and an important way they encourage people to engage is through listening and learning. For example, on their website, people can learn about issue areas and explore related volunteer opportunities through CFengage. These opportunities have been intentionally developed by local nonprofits, and volunteers, while there, learn about the nonprofit’s mission and how the work they are doing that day is impactful.

The Community Foundation also offers a class called Civic Life Today a few times a year to the public and, by invitation, to groups. In Civic Life Today, participants look at their values and interests as well as research in order to inform the creation of a personalized engagement plan. They are also introduced to the Civic Circle, which features nine different ways to engage, such as volunteering, using your voice, and using your purchase power. Often, the more intentional a volunteer is in their engagement choices, the more satisfied and impactful they are.

For Global Volunteer Month, the Community Foundation hosted an event where nonprofit professionals from 17 different organizations came together to write their volunteers personalized, hand-written notes of appreciation, with the Community Foundation providing all the materials and postage. This event allowed nonprofits to carve out dedicated time to steward volunteers and be in community with each other. They also recently launched a new volunteer activation strategy: a Volunteer Passport, where volunteers can take a ‘tour’ of Richmond by volunteering with 27 different nonprofits across the region.

For nonprofits, the Community Foundation looks at capacity building on three levels: individual, organization, and network. They have capacity work that is focused on the individual like “Volunteer Fundamentals,” an in-depth volunteer management training that prepares individuals to bring skills back to their organizations as well as anywhere else they might move. They also focus on the organization with offerings that benefit the organization as a whole, such as Service Enterprise, which is a change management initiative that helps organizations strategically incorporate volunteers throughout their organization. Finally, they focus on supporting the network as a whole, hosting regional convenings and communities of practice to bring together organizations across the region.

Learn more about the Community Foundation for a greater Richmond and how you can get involved in their work at cfrichmond.org. Explore volunteer opportunities in the greater Richmond area through CFEngage at cfengage.org.