TWENTY YEARS AGO, THE SHORTAGE OF AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR THE WORKFORCE WASN'T THE CRISIS IT IS TODAY ON CAPE COD. Development hadn't put as much strain on the region's fragile environment. But the area faced other problems, some of which persist today, like the need for accessible healthcare and other human services.

Elizabeth Gawron, president of The Cape Cod Foundation, says that 20 years after the organization was established as Cape Cod's community foundation, local needs may have changed but the resources are here to address these challenges. "We're not smart enough to know what the problems will be 25 to 50 years from now," Gawron says, "but we should be smart enough to set aside money for that now."

As a community foundation, The Cape Cod Foundation connects the region's resources to its needs by investing money from 274 funds and distributing income among nonprofit groups that are working to address those challenges. More than $5 million in grants and scholarships were disbursed in 2008.

Gawron enjoys the challenge of building the foundation's fund revenue, which has reached $32 million from its starting point of $10,000. Having been with the foundation since 1999, Gawron laughs and says that she won't leave until it reaches $100 million. She says, "People come to Cape Cod because they love Cape Cod; they love the natural beauty, the style, the pace of life. It's a great place to be and a community foundation allows the community to invest in this lovely place."

Last year, The Cape Cod Foundation's board of directors embraced civic leadership as its guiding principle, setting out with an over-arching view of the region's issues and how the foundation could make a difference. Chairman of the Board Richard Page says, "For 20 years we focused on increasing our impact through the donor side. We began to see that there was a need for civic leadership, and that became our thrust: to act as a catalyst and convener to address the needs of Cape Cod."

Good leadership must overcome traditional boundaries, which fits the foundation's mission well. Gawron says Cape Cod is considered a community of 15 individual towns and 53 post offices, but it's the foundation's role to serve all of the Cape and its communities.

This summer, the foundation released its first community needs assessment, "Understanding Cape Cod," which gathers statistics, expert information, and community input on the Cape's leading challenges, including affordable housing and homelessness, health and healthcare, child and youth wellness, the environment and energy, basic human needs, workforce and employment, and arts and culture. The report is intended to help the community make sense of the problems on the Cape and guide effective action. "We're going to conduct a number of community forums to give people the opportunity to talk about these issues," Gawron says.

The foundation also increased its strength last year with the graduation of 15 leaders from the Nonprofit Leadership Development Program, presented in partnership with the Gestalt International Study Center in Wellfleet. "The opportunities are here to build this resource for all of Cape Cod. That's what gets me up in the morning, past my cup of coffee, and down Route 6," Gawron says about the foundation.

"I believe that if you have the ability to lead, you have the obligation to lead," says Page. For the Cape Cod Foundation, leadership is the first step on a journey toward creative solutions for the region's problems.