History

On 11th October 2000, active members of the Trenčín Informal Organization  met at Ondrej’s inn in Soblahov to discuss the future of the organization. Here the definitive decision was made, on establishment of a community foundation, which would be an entity, legally better suited to manage the existing Community Fund.

After the first year of existence, it was necessary to formulate ideas about the future. Consequently, it was decided on the first strategic planning on 28th January 2002, to make effort to reach the public, in order for the unknown foundation to become accepted within the community.

In 2001 and 2002, the foundation took part in a special call for proposals of the program Your Land, named Million for Community Foundations. That enabled the foundation to acquire it first million for the equity. The pattern of increasing this type of wealth, which is necessary for sustainability and financial stability, is apparent from activities of the foundation.

On 9th June 2002, we successfully opened the first present-day Korzo, and since 2003, we have been actively searching for space in the public and civil life of Trenčín and filling it with our own events or programs. This way, we created the Small Gallery of Artworks donated by twelve home artists, Donors Club as a unique program of support for individual donorship, Multigenerational Games joining seniors with the young generation, multiple themed photography competitions to map the interests of the public and other projects investigating the spirit of the community.

In 2003, the Association of the Community Foundations of Slovakia was founded and Trenčín Foundation became the founding member, along with seven other community foundations from Slovakia.

In 2003, the board of directors approved an important document – strategic plan 2004-2009. The main idea was the stabilization of the foundation by professionalization of the internal management, improvement of communicational skills vis a vis the public and increase of assets through real estate acquisition.

The main grant-making program of the foundation passed through a number of changes from internal structure, system of financing, to expansion of its area of effect in the region. The first calls for proposals outside Trenčín were successfully executed in the Upper Nitra, Dubnica nad Váhom and Bánovce nad Bebravou. Huge amount of credit for this goes to new donors and activities of the Youth Bank.

Despite these successful efforts, a final decision to expand the activities of the foundation into whole of the region, was not made until 2012, when the strategic project aimed at development of the foundation’s capacities was concluded.