Standards for All | September 29, 2026
As someone who has worked for the Lancaster County Community Foundation for 18 years and has now joined PANO’s board, I have a deep interest in aligning my day job with my volunteer role. The Values to Action Roadmap and the Standards for All report contain a great wealth of information that will be helpful for so many community benefit organizations interested in equity and belonging. I ask myself, how is our foundation encouraging these practices through all of our grantmaking programs?
In both reports, organizational values—both defining them and actually living them out—are prioritized. At the Community Foundation, our values include Integrity, Equity, Relationships, Courage, and Optimism. Admittedly, some of these values are still aspirational. For example, I’m not always optimistic every time I read the news, and we haven’t “achieved” equity in Lancaster County despite the fact that we have run several equity-related programs. Yes, we have made strides in the right direction, but reversing 100 years of our community failing on this front isn’t going to be an overnight task. Despite these challenges, it’s important for us to put equity on our roadmap and treat it as our North Star, especially for the times we get lost on our pathway.
Our Program Team works very hard to thoughtfully integrate our values into our grantmaking. Not all of our grants are discretionary, but where we do have discretion to apply, we use our values—particularly equity—as filters. What are we using discretionary dollars for? Is it to benefit the status quo, or is it to invite previously uninvited people to the table to solve old problems in new ways? Are we actually providing opportunities for those who have struggled the most?
For the past two years we have used Lancaster’s Equity Profile to inform us on how to put the bulk of our discretionary grants to work. We launched Lancaster Thrives Together, an initiative that aims to embolden our neighbors who are unemployed or ALICE—Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Lancaster is a “prosperous” county, yet upwards of 40% of folks, particularly those from marginalized communities, struggle to make ends meet. Quite honestly, we know Lancaster Thrives Together isn’t going to completely solve inequity in Lancaster County, but it’s a good-faith attempt to chip away at the challenges we face, and it is definitely going to help many individuals on their path to achieve self-sufficiency and belonging.
Understanding that inequity manifests in so many ways, we know that our promotion of grant opportunities, our application process, our evaluation process, and our policies need to be constantly re-evaluated. We have taken steps to translate many of our materials and interpret our public meetings into Spanish and ASL. We have looked closely at our grant application questions to make them less intimidating, especially for English language learners. We have integrated anti-bias training for our volunteer grant reviewers, and we have been intentional about welcoming more people of color into our decision-making processes. When several of our grants are designed specifically to benefit people of color, we ensure the entire grant review panel is BIPOC. “Nothing about us without us.”
PANO’s challenge to use “power with” as opposed to “power over” is especially relevant to a Community Foundation like ours. In one sense, we are a nonprofit organization (because literally we are) but in another sense, we are perceived to have more power than most nonprofits. That comes with the territory when you happen to have millions of dollars to grant every year. While many regard us as having disproportionate power and influence because of our financial position, we actually see it as our role to walk beside the CBOs doing the work. We are mindful not to mandate from nonprofits anything other than what is in alignment with our own values and with the intent of our donors. We’re the first to tell anyone that we are not the true experts in anything—we just support the very best ideas that put our neighbors in a stronger position to live their best lives.
Dave Koser is the Director of Programs for the Lancaster Community Foundation. Born and raised in Lancaster County, Dave plays an integral role in granting more than $2 million to the Lancaster community every year. In particular, he manages several of the organization’s competitive grant making processes, working closely with applicants and community volunteers who review grant proposals. Dave graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh in 2005, where he majored in history and political science. His hobbies include home remodeling, playing guitar, outdoor adventures, and most importantly, spending time with his wife, Elizabeth, and his sons, Ben and Owen. A favorite local activity of his is spending an evening at a Lancaster Stormers game, always hopeful to catch his first foul ball.
This post is part of our series looking at the Standards for All Report and Values to Action Roadmap released earlier this year. Here are links to the other posts in the series so far:
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