Best Nonprofit

If you contributed to the Community Foundation’s inaugural Big Payback day of charitable giving, you were likely staggered by the sheer number of worthy causes — and proud to see how many support them. We single out the Florida-based foundation this year for several reasons. One, it has maintained a quiet but steady presence in Middle Tennessee for many years, providing college grants for the children of U.S. special operations personnel who died in the line of duty — among them many fallen soldiers at Fort Campbell. Two, its (unreported) good deeds often go beyond those bounds to help the soldiers’ needy families. Three, it maintains four-star status on Charity Navigator, with an overall rating of 98.89 (100 percent for accountability and transparency). Four, it inspired one of the year’s coolest grass-roots efforts, as then University School of Nashville students Alec Eskind, Joe Noser and James Douglas launched a schoolwide effort to sell bandannas for the USN homecoming basketball game, with all proceeds going to the foundation. Not only did they raise more than $1,000, says Eskind, now a student at Tulane, the 5-foot-11 power forward looked into the stands to see hundreds of cheering homecoming fans — all decked in bandannas. Visit specialops.org for more information.