About Us

The story of the Columbia Basin Foundation began in 1994 with a simple question: Could a community foundation work in the Columbia Basin?

At the time, Rick Honsowetz of CliftonLarsonAllen, formerly LeMaster & Daniels, Randy Dickinson of Edward Jones Investments, and the executive directors of two local nonprofit organizations began discussing a challenge facing charitable organizations throughout the region. While many donors wanted to leave lasting gifts through charitable bequests and endowments, the cost and complexity of establishing and managing those funds could be difficult for an individual nonprofit organization to take on.

The group began exploring the community foundation model and discovered a practical solution. Community foundations were already helping organizations and donors in communities large and small by professionally managing charitable funds, supporting scholarships, providing ongoing resources to nonprofits, and creating opportunities for donors to make a lasting impact.

What began as a conversation soon became a vision for the Columbia Basin.

Over the next several years, the original group worked to build support for the idea and invited others to join the effort. As momentum grew, the work of formally creating the Columbia Basin Foundation began. G. Raymond Taylor of the Greater Wenatchee Community Foundation and Eleanor Kane of the Blue Mountain Area Foundation in Walla Walla provided valuable guidance and assistance along the way.

Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws were drafted, and an application was submitted to the Internal Revenue Service for recognition as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Following considerable work behind the scenes, the Columbia Basin Foundation was officially incorporated in August 1996.

The founding Board of Directors then took the Foundation’s story into the community, speaking with service clubs, businesses, and local leaders about the vision for the organization and the financial support needed to establish a strong foundation for its first years of operation.

Even before the Foundation hired its first staff member, its mission was already taking shape. In December 1996, founding board member Mick Ewart of Connell established CBF’s first endowment fund in memory of his parents. The G.O. & Ione Ewart Educational Trust Fund was created to provide scholarships for Connell High School graduates attending four-year academic institutions.

With financial commitments secured for the Foundation’s first three years, the Board began the search for its first employee. In February 1997, Dave Campbell of Moses Lake was hired as CBF’s part-time Foundation Manager.

From those early conversations and one pioneering endowment, the Columbia Basin Foundation has continued to grow.

Since 1996, individuals, families, businesses, and organizations have trusted CBF to help make their charitable giving meaningful, strategic, and lasting. As a public charity, the Foundation brings together people who share a commitment to strengthening the quality of life throughout the Columbia Basin and beyond.

Donors create charitable funds reflecting the causes, communities, and opportunities that matter most to them. CBF invests and administers those funds and uses their distributions to support scholarships, nonprofit organizations, community projects, and humanitarian, educational, cultural, and civic efforts throughout the region.

What began with a handful of community-minded individuals asking whether a community foundation could succeed in the Columbia Basin has grown into an enduring resource for charitable giving. From its first endowment in 1996, the Columbia Basin Foundation has grown to manage more than 160 funds representing a wide range of philanthropic goals, along with numerous special project funds created to strengthen and enhance the communities we are proud to call home.