Kate Dabbs ’09 receives highest Charitable Giving Award

Furman University alumna Kate Dabbs, a 2009 political science and English graduate, has received the Ruth Nicholson Award presented by the Community Foundation of Greenville and TOWN magazine. The award is the foundation’s highest honor and recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to the community through volunteer work for the Community Foundation or to one of its projects, programs or areas of emphasis.

One of seven recipients of the 2025 Charitable Giving Awards, Dabbs has invested her time and talents at Community Foundation, the Southern Endowment Fund, and at Abundance Capital where she serves as chief community officer, among other nonprofits.

In TOWN magazine, the announcement describes a service-learning project Dabbs undertook at Greenville Forward while at Furman. That experience showed her the importance of diving deep to understand the unique needs of organizations. She later joined boards of a dozen agencies and nonprofits. She has since held several roles at Community Foundation of Greenville, leveraging her strengths: storytelling, strategizing and organizing.

“There probably never has been someone who has done as many different things as Kate has,” said Bob Morris, president of the Community Foundation of Greenville. “We don’t have that many people who understand the total of what we’re about and what we do, and she’s one of those people. She’s got a lot of perspective about the foundation and our work because of her history of being engaged with us.”

Learn more about Dabbs’ involvement in the community. A three-minute YouTube video in TOWN features remarks from alumna Susan Thomson Shi ’71, Furman Board of Trustees member and retired First Lady.