A New Chapter for Community Support: Introducing the Peninsula Nonprofit Partnership

We’re excited to feature Adelia Thompson, Chief Executive Officer of Peninsula Community Foundation of Virginia, as a guest blogger on the Armstrong McGuire blog — bringing nearly four decades of nonprofit leadership, fundraising strategy, and community impact to the conversation.

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For almost 20 years, the Virginia peninsula’s nonprofit community relied on Network Peninsula (“Network”) for training, advocacy and connection, which helped so many of our local organizations thrive.

Sadly, in the fall of 2025, Network leaders made the difficult decision to sunset operations – marking the end of an important chapter of service to this community and calling for some new unifying resource and operational buttressing for the area’s nonprofits.  In recognition of Network’s legacy and the ongoing need for nonprofit support, our four Peninsula organizations made the decision to find a way to address that need, together.  

The Virginia Peninsula Chamber of Commerce (Bob McKenna, president and CEO), the Bernardine Franciscan Sister’s Foundation (Sister David Ann Niski, executive director), the United Way of the Virginia Peninsula (Charvalla West, CEO) and the Peninsula Community Foundation (Adelia Thompson, CEO) – all organizations created to serve the entire Peninsula community – came together to form the Peninsula Nonprofit Partnership.  

Bob McKenna was on the board of Network Peninsula when the decision was made to cease operations. “It was the right decision but happening right at the time when the landscape surrounding nonprofits was shifting. Those organizations were going to need more reinforcement, not less. So, the four of us decided to see how we might provide that reinforcement.”

We worked through the list of Network’s services to see how we might divide and conquer.  We discovered that, across the four of us, some version of many of those services were already in play – and with good communication, a little creativity, and each of us taking on a few programs here and there, we could stand-up a new partnership that could backstop Network’s programs and perhaps offer some new possibilities too.

The list of services included:

• ‍Regular coffee gatherings for Executive Directors and Development leaders. These will continue, bi-monthly, rotating locations among our four organizations.  ‍
• A membership connection. Network members paid an annual fee. All current Network memberships are now being honored by the Chamber until the month an organization’s dues would have come due.  At that point, each organization will be offered Chamber membership at special rates, negotiated based on organizational budget size. All members will be listed in the Chamber Directory and Preferred Providers will be listed online – businesses that offer services to nonprofits at reduced rates.  ‍
• Advocacy: The United Way and Bernardine Franciscan Sister’s Foundation (BFSF) will coordinate the Annual Legislative Breakfast in partnership with the Chamber’s Legislative Roundtable Series; the Chamber will host its General Assembly Meet and Greet for all members of the Chamber and will join the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) – affording nonprofit members access to NCN advocacy tools. ‍
• Communications: The Chamber will expand its Nonprofit Navigator newsletter to all former members of Network.  The newsletter features grant/funding, resource and event information, nonprofit news, volunteer needs and job openings.   ‍
• Meeting spaces: Our organizations offer meeting spaces of varying sizes.  United Way, Peninsula Community Foundation (PCF) and BFSF will provide meeting space at no cost, and the Chamber at special rental rates for nonprofit members. ‍
• In-Kind help: United Way will coordinate with the Chamber to make businesses aware of in-kind contributions they can make to nonprofits – and to lift up those needs as they arise among the nonprofits. ‍
• Workshops and board development: BFSF will host workshops and seminars for board members and nonprofit professionals on a host of topics and provide information concerning relevant webinars.  For board development – the Chamber and the United Way are coordinating new opportunities, including the Chamber’s LEAD Peninsula program as a source of potential board members. ‍
• Access to information about the nonprofit community: A comprehensive database of all nonprofits serving the Peninsula has been constructed at PCF. It contains data about each organization, is easy to navigate and sort, and will be regularly updated. It will be pushed out to all nonprofits, major funders across the area, and available through the Foundation’s website. It is intended to help nonprofits more easily connect with one another, coordinate projects and resources, and afford funders a ready reference of all the organizations in the area, the causes they serve and their business information.

In addition, we are creating a single email account where nonprofits or funders can communicate with all of us at the same time – and we can collaborate on responses with one voice.  

We will learn and adjust as we go. Our four organizations are called and prepared to serve our community.  For now, serving means figuring out how to answer that call, together. We won’t be perfect, but we agree that this is a good place to start.