Community foundations exemplify a growing form of place-based philanthropic efforts for addressing public problems. However, why do such efforts occur in some places, but not in others? Using an original population dataset of community foundations that combines community characteristics with service area data across 3130 US counties, the empirical analyses of hurdle negative binomial models reveal distinct patterns in explaining their locational distribution and philanthropic activities. Community foundations tend to emerge or flourish in urban communities which are White-dominant, ethnically homogeneous, and less religious but have more social and human capital. Crossing the zero hurdle, their philanthropic activities tend to bloom in ethnically diverse and unequal communities but plummet in highly educated communities with more high-income earners, whereas rural and vulnerable communities with high proportions of residents who are young, old, unemployed, and disabled exemplify potential service gaps of community foundations associated with their rarity and/or fewer philanthropic activities. This study presents a community assessment model and empirical evidence of what might promote and inhibit the occurrence of community philanthropic efforts.