The Marietta Community Foundation was founded in 1974 and headed by the late Carl L. Broughton. The Foundation became relatively dormant before being reactivated in 1992 through a sizable gift from two former Marietta residents, Mary Carolyn McCoy Mildren and William E. Mildren Sr. They established a trust in memory of their late parents to be used as a challenge grant encouraging community leader Robert E. Kirkbride to revitalize the Foundation.
The government-backed Social Investment Research Council is newly formed to hatch practical insights into social investment market products, and the investors needed to finance them.