Serving People & Communities

Opus Foundation

Serving People & Communities

Opus Foundation

The Opus Foundation helps build Opus communities and supports efforts that make them better places to live, work and raise families.

Opus Foundation

We work to improve the conditions that disproportionately affect historically underinvested people and communities by deploying capital across these focus areas:

  • Early Childhood Education to provide high-quality experiences for preschool-aged children that result in enhanced social/emotional skills and school readiness
  • Youth Development to promote healthy social and academic development of youth with an emphasis on fostering their aspirations to stay in school and pursue higher education or a career track
  • Workforce Development to strengthen the workforce in our communities to position and prepare under/unemployed individuals for career readiness/advancement and greater self-sufficiency
  • Community Revitalization to increase the vitality of economically disinvested neighborhoods, such as the development of small businesses, affordable housing and/or other important community assets like community centers

Guided by Core Principles

At the Opus Foundation we are guided by eight core principles. They serve as the philosophy, values and lens from which we work.

  1. We believe investments of time, talent and resources supporting opportunities for people to become well-educated/self-sufficient lead to healthier communities and greater individual success.
  2. We seek to partner with organizations that are entrepreneurial, creative, proactive and innovative in their approach, and focused on delivering measurable results.
  3. We actively embrace and support inclusive practices and strategies throughout our culture and our work to deepen our connection and amplify our impact in the communities we serve.
  4. We value listening to and learning from community and our partners and seek their input to continuously improve our practices and organizational policies to ensure we are responding equitably.
  5. We value organizations that leverage funding and volunteer talent to achieve their objectives and maximize our collective impact.
  6. The majority of our investments are awarded in communities in which Opus does business. On occasion, national support may be allocated to benefit individuals and communities across the country.
  7. Our funds support involvement of Opus associates in their communities because we believe these local investments of time and talent of our associates help meet community needs, while also building leadership and empowering them to live organizational and individual values.
  8. We encourage collaboration, teamwork and team-building among Opus associates and between associates and our community partners.

Priorities of Our Work

A colorful graphic that shows connections between Racial Equity, Engaged Associates, Opus Value and Building Community; in the middle is states the commitment and the focus areas.

The Foundation fulfills our commitment and achieves our mission through the following action pillars:

Advancing Communities

We’re advancing communities by resourcing critical needs through grantmaking, impact investments and associate volunteerism. In this work, we actively listen and uphold community voice to further understand shifting needs and opportunities and identify optimal ways to successfully partner to meet those needs. In each of our focus areas, we’re working to increase access, reduce barriers and address ongoing disparities.

Engaging Associates

Opus associates are key to the work of the Opus Foundation. We're cultivating ambassadors to represent our work in Opus communities. We offer learning and engagement opportunities to connect associates to local community efforts and support nonprofit organizations where associates volunteer. These opportunities play a critical role in upholding Opus’ core value of stewardship and Opus’ Corporate Responsibility goals.

Extending Opus Reach

We connect to Opus' business and legacy, supporting partners in markets where the Opus teams work and we thoughtfully engage stakeholders in identifying impactful local nonprofits. Additionally, we support initiatives that foster a qualified, inclusive future workforce in our industries.

Impact Investing

Since its inception, we’ve made thousands of grants to impactful nonprofit organizations. In 2020, we expanded our efforts with a long-term initiative to support qualifying organizations through impact investments.

Impact investments are made from our endowment with the intention of generating positive and measurable social impact and a financial return. To date, we've made the following program related investments:

The Opus Foundation is the philanthropic foundation for Opus. The Opus Foundation is a separate entity from Opus and is led by its own Board of Directors. The Opus Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals.

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