Lewisburg, W.Va. (WVDN) – Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation (GVCF) announced that was awarded a 2026 Civic Hub grant from the Trust for Civic Life, a national grantmaker supporting rural communities. One of twenty 2026 recipients nationwide, this funding will support the foundation’s work in bringing the people of the Greenbrier Valley and surrounding communities together in new and meaningful ways.
Through its Civic Hub grants and small grants program, the Trust for Civic Life invests $10M annually into locally-led groups across rural America that strengthen civic engagement and create opportunities for long-term community collaboration. These grants support a wide range of efforts like local events, public spaces, new programs, and communitywide initiatives—all designed to bring neighbors together to solve challenges and build stronger connections.
The Trust’s grants program aims to reach and fund groups working on the ground that national philanthropy finds difficult to identify and fund. The latest round of funding awarded $7.6 million in grants ranging from $300K to $425K each, with new grantees serving 16 states across the country.
“These local Civic Hubs are rising to the moment and responding to the unique needs of their communities. In doing so, they build connection, confidence, and capacity that community members need to shape the future they want,” said Charlie Brown, Executive Director of the Trust for Civic Life. “Because they have such a deep understanding of their communities, Civic Hubs can lead and adapt in ways national groups simply cannot.”
Through this support, the Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation will build collaborative partnerships and support progress across Greenbrier, Monroe, Pocahontas, and Fayette counties. The Foundation aims to be both a foundational resource for the region and a model for other Hubs in Central Appalachia and rural America. Trust funding will support programming and planning for community gathering spaces, recreation development, and financial security initiatives. GVCF will also continue working collaboratively to address barriers such as transportation access that limit participation in community programs.
About the Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation
The mission of the Greenbrier Valley Community Foundation is to create a tradition of charitable giving and enhance the quality of life for the people of Greenbrier, Monroe, and Pocahontas counties. It achieves this by accepting contributions, managing funds, and awarding grants and scholarships to students and organizations in its service area, with the ultimate goal of creating sustained impact and strategic collaboration among community partners.
Many rural communities lead initiatives and programs strictly with volunteers or one or two staff persons. Many rural communities are leading initiatives and programs strictly with volunteers or one or two staff persons. Support from the community foundation through funding, strategic planning, facilitating cross-organization collaboration, board/committee participation, or often a combination of these, is an important piece of a small organization’s success and regional cohesiveness.
GVCF understands that to improve the quality of life for those living in areas of generational economic challenges, organizations must identify how to move from assistance to empowerment. Currently, GVCF focuses on collaborative funding for education/workforce development, food security, community building, health, and the arts. The Civic Hub grant from the Trust for Civic Life will help amplify this work for stronger, more impactful results for the people in our community.
“Central Appalachia is a special place. Our people are resilient, resourceful, and extraordinarily community-focused. Sustainable investment in the empowerment of our people—people who have long felt forgotten—is money well spent”, said Anne Bowling, GVCF’s Executive Director.
About the Trust for Civic Life
The Trust for Civic Life is a grantmaking collaborative supporting the community efforts that help Americans connect, solve problems together, and feel confident in a shared future. Launched in 2024, the collaborative brings together a cross-ideological team of funders to invest $50 million by 2028 in a new wave of local civic opportunities that increase trust, agency, and belonging in rural America. Through its grantmaking, the Trust funds both the critical groundwork and promising experiments that allow civic participation to take hold in rural communities and spread across the country.
The Trust was initiated by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Stand Together, and Omidyar Network, and has grown to include 23 funding members from national philanthropy and the private sector.
Learn more at www.trustforciviclife.org.
For more information, contact GVCF Executive Director Anne Bowling at 304-645-5620 or director@gvfoundation.org.
