NCGV has been awarded $25,000 from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to continue our civic engagement and statewide expansion work. The Foundation's award will allow NCGV to continue to grow our membership and life-saving programming despite difficult economic times.

A Brief History of the Z. Smith Reynold's Foundation:

The Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation was established in 1936 as a memorial to the youngest son of the founder of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. In that year the brother and two sisters of Z. Smith Reynolds - R.J. Reynolds, Jr., Mary Reynolds Babcock, and Nancy Susan Reynolds Bagley - provided that their inheritance from his estate would go to the establishment of a trust for "charitable works in the State of North Carolina." One of the initial trustees of the Foundation was Z. Smith Reynolds' uncle, William Neal Reynolds, who at his death in 1951 created a trust that now provides a portion of the Foundation's annual income.

In its history, the Foundation, as the beneficiary of the income from the Zachary Smith Reynolds Trust and the W. N. Reynolds Trust, has made grants to organizations in all of North Carolina's 100 counties. The Foundation currently gives special attention to certain focus areas: community economic development;the environment;democracy and civic engagement; pre-collegiate education; and social justice and equity.

In 1986 the Foundation, as a part of its Fifine anniversary observance, established the Nancy Susan Reynolds Award to recognize people who have made a difference in leadership in their communities and have gone largely unrecognized. Also, in May of 1989 the Foundation's Board of Trustees established a sabbatical program to reward individual leaders in nonprofit organizations who have made exceptional commitments of time, talent, and energy to their positions.