Gulf Shore Giving Guide: A Post-Hurricane Community Fund Explained

What the fund was

This guide describes a pooled community fund that began in September 2005, soon after Hurricane Katrina struck the US Gulf Coast. Foundations and private donors created it so that money for recovery would be steered by people living in the hit communities, rather than by distant decision makers.

What the guide covers

Each section looks at one part of the fund's story.

• About the guide and the fund: background, purpose, history and the way decisions were made.
• The advisory group: the regional leaders who shaped priorities and sat on review panels.
• Grantees: the community groups that received awards, sorted by cycle and by state.
• Programmes: the kinds of work the fund backed.
• The 2010 oil disaster: how the fund responded when a drilling rig failure fouled the Gulf.
• Media: photographs and press coverage.

A quick orientation

The fund worked in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas, and later added Florida. Its focus was long-term rebuilding, with attention to neighbourhoods, ecosystems and the residents who had been displaced or had returned home.

The site is a reference only. It reports what the fund did and does not take part in any grantmaking today. The privacy page explains how the site handles visitor data.