Officially Welcoming the Community Foundation of Nevada County’s CEO – Cristine Kelly
When the newly official CEO of the Community Foundation of Nevada County (COFO NC) talks about her work, she does not start with titles or credentials. She starts with place. “I moved here when I was 28,” says Cristine Kelly. “I’ve lived in Penn Valley, South County, Grass Valley, Nevada City. This community has held me through every stage of my adult life.” Thirty-three years later, that deep, lived connection to Nevada County is at the heart of why she wants to lead the Community Foundation. While Cristine has been steadily planning, growing, and running the COFO NC for more than a year as the interim CEO, we are delighted to welcome her as the official CEO as of January 6.
For more than 20 years, Cristine has worked almost exclusively in the nonprofit sector, specializing in organizational effectiveness, capacity building, and systems-level thinking. She describes herself as both a student and an expert — someone who has spent years learning how nonprofits function, where they struggle, and what helps them thrive. “We can create a more interconnected ecosystem here,” she explains, “not just in the nonprofit community, but across the whole community.”
The best time to plant a tree is yesterday
She tells a story about a massive American persimmon tree that fell in the last winter storm, a tree that had shaded her home for decades. Its replacement will take many years before it offers the same protection, and yet she is planting that new tree now. “The best time to plant a tree is yesterday,” she says. “The next best time is today.”
That metaphor guides her thinking about the Community Foundation’s work. While she wishes the efforts started years ago had taken root, she is clear-eyed about the urgency of the present moment. Climate change, economic instability, and growing community needs demand action now to build resilience for future generations. “We are holding and tending and nurturing the seeds of the future,” she says. “It is important work.”
Essential civic infrastructure
Looking ahead, Cristine’s vision for the next five years focuses on growth with purpose: bringing more outside funding into Nevada County, strengthening collaboration among nonprofits, and building trust with donors who want to leave a lasting legacy here. Over the next 25 years, she sees the Community Foundation as essential civic infrastructure, uniquely positioned between government, industry, and the nonprofit sector to help solve problems in real time while also stewarding long-term assets for the future.
At one point in the conversation, she pauses, holding her new granddaughter. The future suddenly feels very tangible. “I hope we can create a place here where families can come and live and thrive,” she says. “We don’t know what questions we’ll be facing in 25 years, but we will be ready to respond.”
“We are stewards of this community”
Outside of her role at the Foundation, Cristine continues to consult for nonprofits throughout California, bringing lessons from mergers and acquisitions, arts funding, and nonprofit strategy back home. She gardens, writes, and once had a thriving career as a professional horse trainer, teaching English riding to the daughters of Michael Bloomberg on the East Coast before relocating and building a successful equestrian business in Nevada County.
Above all, she emphasizes humility. “We don’t come to this work with an agenda,” she says. “We are really a listening and learning organization. We are stewards of this community; we are not here to tell it what to do.”
It is a philosophy grounded in patience, care, and long-term thinking, much like planting a tree whose shade you may never sit beneath, but knowing someone else will.