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The Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines is trying to deepen its donor pool, and that sounds like a worthwhile experiment.

Like most American institutions, the foundation had to climb out of a financial hole created by the recession.

At the beginning of fiscal year 2008, the charity group had $146 million in unrestricted net assets; at the end, the total had plunged to $109 million. Donors had contributed $32 million and $27 million in grants were doled out, but the Community Foundation’s investments had lost $40 million.

In fiscal 2009, the organization saw a huge drop in contributions, to $17 million, but made $20 million on its investments, a 22 percent return. Assets climbed to $126 million.

With an eye on contribution trends, the foundation is trying to encourage more donors to participate by eliminating the $10,000 minimum that has been in place for most of its funds.

The current list of donors features the names of Central Iowa’s wealthiest families; there must be others who would like to take part.

Many of those same folks appear on the Lifetown Legacy list, which has grown in five years to about 147 individuals, couples and families. Community Foundation President J. Barry Griswell made a quick pitch for that program at the 2010 luncheon held last week.

You spend four years at a college and make donations for the rest of your life, he noted; why not do the same for your “lifetown,” the place that enabled you to have a career and raise a family?

Griswell also is trying to change the organization in a philosophical way. He spoke last week about projects designed to restore civility to our discourse.

This might seem tangential to the Community Foundation’s mission of supporting nonprofit organizations with cash grants. But civil discussions can turn down the heat on many of the problems that nonprofits work to resolve.