A New Home with a Solid Foundation
courtesy of Historic Columbus
Community Foundation’s New Location Bridges History and Future Opportunities by Doug Gillett photos by Eliza Daffin Photography and courtesy of Historic Columbus
T
he “brick box” of a building at 1147 Sixth Avenue in Columbus is easy to miss as you drive by. It doesn’t stand out with avant-garde architecture or flashy décor. “From the time we moved here when I was eight,” Betsy Covington recalls, “we drove past it every week going to church and I never noticed it.” Over the past year, though, Covington, president and CEO of the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley (CFCV), has fallen in love with the place—as has her board and the rest of the staff. And on October 16, they held a Dedication Celebration to introduce it as the CFCVs new home. Artwork signed by the guests that evening, which will be framed to hang in the lobby, reads, “This space is
dedicated to the work of the Community Foundation to strengthen the Chattahoochee Valley through the power of collective giving and partnerships.”
Hunting for a New HQ
Covington only has kind words for CFCV’s previous offices, located in a storefront along 13th Street next to Dinglewood Park. “We loved being in the Village on 13th, which is a great example of adaptive reuse,” she says. But CFCV—the second-largest Community Foundation in the state, with more than $375 million in assets—had quite simply outgrown the space. “When we had to fit 25 people in for board meetings, they would sit literally shoulder to shoulder.” The search for a new headquarters ended up lasting N OV E M B E R / D EC E M B E R 2 0 2 5
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