Successor Nicole Acosta, Vice President of Grants and Nonprofit Programs and Amy Owen, retiring President and CEO
President and CEO of the Community Foundation for Loudoun and Northern Fauquier Counties, Amy Owen, has announced her retirement following a career of nonprofit service and leadership spanning more than 35 years.
Owen started with the Community Foundation in May of 2012 after serving as executive director of the Eastern West Virginia Community Foundation for eleven years and director of development for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy for ten years before moving to Loudoun County. Since that time, the Community Foundation has expanded under her leadership both financially and programmatically.
Over her tenure, the Community Foundation’s assets have grown from $1.3 million and 25 funds in 2012 to $10 million and 115 funds in 2023 while grantmaking has grown from $149,000 to more than $2.6 million. In the same time period, staff has grown from a single employee and contract employee to four-full time positions and three contract employees.
In 2013, she established a partnership with the Loudoun Chamber of Commerce creating the Nonprofit Academy offering workshops designed for nonprofit leaders. In 2014, Owen launched Give Choose, an annual community-wide giving day that has since raised more than $4 million for local nonprofits. In 2015 and initially funded by 100WomenStrong, she established deeper-dive training programming through the “Social Impact Institute” offering in its first-year executive coaching for nonprofit executives with Fortune 500 coach Leigh Shields. In 2016, guided by Owen, the first “Philanthropy Summit” convened nonprofits, government leaders, and community philanthropists around hunger in partnership with Loudoun Hunger Relief and in successive years tackled such issues as education, daycare, mental health and substance abuse, racial equity and social justice, and affordable housing. In 2017, she launched the “Faces of Loudoun” community service campaign portraying authentic stories of need to help increase giving after two successive studies revealed subpar charitable giving in Loudoun compared to neighboring jurisdictions. In that same year, the Community Foundation was named “Nonprofit of the Year,” followed in 2018 with an award to Owen as “Entrepreneur of the Year.” In 2019, the Community Foundation moved from loaned office space at Healthworks into a stand-alone office building and opened a Claude Moore Nonprofit Training Center in Leesburg that serves as a training venue and meeting place for Community Foundation grantees and fund holders. In March 2020, she led the launch of a “Community Emergency Relief Fund” and a COVID-19 Information and Referral Helpline led by a partnership between Loudoun Cares and the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington. In 2020 and 2021, she partnered with the Loudoun County Department of Health and Virginia Department of Health to launch COVID-19 testing and vaccination public awareness outreach, as well as launched programming through a “Racial Equity Framework” to benefit the local nonprofit organizations in DEIA best practices as well as the internal policies of the Community Foundation.
“I’m not sure any career could compete with the opportunities I’ve been given,” said Owen. “To look back on it all brings deep abiding satisfaction and joy. It also conjures up those who helped support, boost, and invest in my work along the way. Brad Davis, Community Foundation Board Chair who hired me in 2012 was as steady, generous, and practical a leader as I’ve ever come to work with, followed by successive Board Chairs Tracey White, Kirsten Langhorne, Lucky Wadehra, and Paul Siker. And, the counseling, leadership, and investment by J Lambert and the staff of the Claude Moore Charitable Foundation has been pivotal to so much of what we have accomplished and what this organization is now and will be forever in our community. Lastly, the staff and Board of Directors serving the Community Foundation are outstanding. The vision, the care, and the future of this organization are in the best hands.”
“Amy Owen’s impact on local nonprofits and the entirety of Loudoun and Northern Fauquier counties cannot be overstated. An entrepreneur at her core, for more than a decade, Amy has been an innovator and passionate advocate for building grantmaking endowment for the betterment of our community,” said Paul Siker, Chair of Community Foundation’s Board of Directors. “The partnerships and programs Amy has championed have not only nurtured the essential nonprofit agencies that make Loudoun County a better place to live but have also provided the Community Foundation with a rich legacy on which we will continue to build.”
Nicole Acosta, the Community Foundation’s Vice President of Grants and Nonprofits since 2018, has been named to replace Owen as the President and CEO upon her departure.
