Blue Grass Community Foundation is celebrating a tremendous milestone: awarding over $150 million in grants and scholarships since our founding in 1967! BGCF was established when C.W. and Irene Sulier invited several Central Kentucky philanthropists to join them in establishing a public foundation to encourage charitable giving and to… Read More
Tax-savvy philanthropists may be interested in new provisions included in the $1.65 trillion omnibus spending bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 (CAA). These provisions, often referred to as SECURE 2.0, build upon the original SECURE Act of 2019 and provide enhancements to the rules for utilizing a qualified charitable… Read More
Record number of nonprofits participating in region’s biggest online giving event Get ready for Central and Appalachia Kentucky’s most generous week of giving because the GoodGiving Challenge is back and bigger than ever! With a record-breaking 200 local nonprofits to support, and daily match challenges totaling more than $600,000,… Read More
Dolly Parton is known for three things: her music, her big hair, and her big heart for early literacy! But the latter is why the country artist and humanitarian’s Imagination Library has continued to grow throughout the country. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library allows children from birth to age 5 to… Read More
Two first-generation college students are fulfilling their dream of furthering their education, thanks to the newly established Murry Foundation Scholarship. Wes Murry, a founder of the famous Castle & Key Distillery, mentor to numerous startups and co-chair of BGCF’s Fund for Greater Lexington, is well versed in charitable giving. Read More
AppHarvest and Blue Grass Community Foundation began their partnership in 2021 through Appalachia Rises, a collaborative flood-relief effort for Eastern Kentucky. The partnership between BGCF and AppHarvest deepened when AppHarvest established a corporate charitable foundation at the Community Foundation. Now, AppHarvest is, yet again, investing in Eastern Kentucky – and… Read More
Great things are happening in the city of Sharpsburg! Thanks to a bequest from lifelong resident Robert L. Brown, this small city in Bath County is being transformed. Robert, whose family has lived in Sharpsburg for many generations, left an incredibly generous gift through his estate to establish the R. Read More
In 2003 a friend gave me a book that changed my life — although not in a way that anyone noticed or maybe that even I noticed at the time. The book was Tracy Kidder’s “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” an account of how one person was trying to alter the way… Read More
On August 29, 1871, Jerry Gatewood, formerly enslaved and a U.S. Colored Troop veteran, purchased the first 5-acre parcel of what would become Huntertown Hamlet in Woodford County. Huntertown was one of hundreds of all-Black towns established after the Civil War by formerly enslaved people. Its 50 acres were home… Read More
Chris Stapleton’s “A Concert for Kentucky” stadium show raised over $1 million dollars for the Outlaw State of Kind Hometown Fund at BGCF. Held on Saturday, April 23, the sold out event was the first concert ever held at University of Kentucky’s Kroger Field and featured performances by Stapleton along… Read More