The president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, Frank Fernandez, announced Wednesday afternoon that he’s stepping down from his role after six years.
“After six wonderful years, I have accepted a new professional role that will take me beyond Atlanta,” Fernandez wrote in an email to stakeholders.
“Serving this organization and this community has been one of the great privileges of my professional life,” he continued. “What I will carry with me is not a list of accomplishments, but the relationships we have built, the impact we have made together, and the certainty that the Foundation has never been stronger.”
Fernandez joined the Community Foundation in August 2020 amid the COVID pandemic and as the country was dealing with racial unrest following the killing of George Floyd.
“Those were uncertain times,” Fernandez wrote in the email. “They also revealed the very best of Atlanta: a community that meets its challenges with generosity, compassion and resolve.”
Fernandez joined the Community Foundation after moving to Atlanta to join the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, first focusing on Westside revitalization efforts and later serving as a senior vice president for the Blank Foundation.
Under his tenure, the Community Foundation helped navigate the region’s response to the pandemic, and he helped build a strong affordable housing portfolio.
“Together, we moved more than $30 million to nonprofits on the front lines of the pandemic, partnered with Mayor Dickens to help more than 600 of our neighbors move from Forest Cove into safe, quality homes,” Fernandez wrote. “We launched a $200 million commitment to affordable housing that, in three years, has supported more than 50 projects and more than 4,500 homes where families can put down roots. Last year alone, our Foundation invested more than $250 million in grants and impact investments across the region, an 87 percent increase since 2019.”
Fernandez continued, saying those results were not his success alone:
“They belong to the donors who show up year after year with resources and wisdom; to the nonprofit partners doing the hardest work in the hardest places; to the civic leaders who choose partnership over turf; and to the most dedicated staff I have ever worked alongside,” he wrote. “Atlanta, as Mayor Dickens likes to say, is a group project. That has been true for the Foundation’s first 75 years, and it will be true for the next 75.”
Fernandez did not disclose what his next step will be, only saying he would be fully engaged through his final day in August.
Fernandez did not return a text or phone call on Wednesday afternoon to elaborate on the transition. But his email did say “an experienced interim leader will be in place before my departure.
Also, Fernandez said the board of the Foundation already has begun to search for the next president and CEO “to ensure a smooth and thoughtful transition.”
A text and phone call to Board Chair Julia Houston, who also serves as chief legal officer for Equifax, also were not answered.
Fernandez became CEO of the Community Foundation, succeeding Alicia Philipp, who had led the organization for 43 years. The Community Foundation was founded in 1951.
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