The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation

The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation

The Charlottesville Area Community Foundation was founded in 1967 to improve quality of life across Charlottesville and its surrounding counties. Leslie Lynn Smith, previously with GET Cities, was appointed President & CEO in June 2025. The foundation operates as a permanent endowment, pooling philanthropic capital from multiple donor funds, including the long-running Bama Works Fund established by the Dave Matthews Band. The foundation's investment posture spans real assets and private markets. Known portfolio allocations include a Real Assets/Inflation Hedge Portfolio and a Non-Traditional Assets sleeve managed by Bluestem Asset Management, the firm founded by Michael Bills. The geographic footprint concentrates on Central Virginia, with specific community-development investments such as the Premier Circle mixed-use project in Charlottesville, a former motel site converted for local benefit. Board-level investment oversight draws on specialized institutional expertise. Ashleigh O'Brien, Head of Sustainable Investment Strategy at CornerStone Partners, and Jake Zarnegar, an entrepreneur and software investor rooted in Charlottesville's startup ecosystem, both serve on the board. In June 2025, the foundation appointed Leslie Lynn Smith as President & CEO, signaling a continued focus on community-aligned capital deployment. The foundation's structural differentiator lies in its hybrid architecture — it is neither a pure family office nor a conventional grant-maker. Its Community Endowment aggregates hundreds of donor-advised funds while maintaining distinct, professionally managed investment sleeves that include non-traditional assets and real estate, creating a pooled, institutional-grade deployment mechanism for place-based philanthropy.