Historically, individual and institutional private philanthropy has suffered from criticism of self-interest, elitism and furthering plutocracy. Community foundation philanthropy focuses on place-based philanthropy as well as advancing community well-being often through participatory engagement. Community foundations have an opportunity to embrace a community well-being paradigm and participation to allow for authentic community voice. Community participation can and will help community foundations align their funding of priorities and initiatives to meet community needs to the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Community foundation place-based activities such as the On The Table events allow shared community well-being for social change and to advance SDGs numbers 16 and 17. We suggest in this descriptive case study of ten community foundations that use of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) allows community foundations to benchmark change and reduce social inequalities in local communities.