In April, National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Utah and Utah Business announced five winners of the Outstanding Directors of 2025 award. Among the awardees was Park City Community Foundation’s own Governance Chair, Beth Plavan. Beth is a beloved member of the board of directors and of our local community in general.
“Beth is a very kind, warm, intelligent, and approachable person who is very easy to talk to,” said Millicent Tracey, another Park City Community Foundation board member.
Millicent nominated Beth for the Outstanding Directors Award. She said Park City Community Foundation has a well-run board and that Beth came to mind because her work — alongside the rest of the board — has been incredibly impactful.
When Beth found out she’d won the NACD Utah award, she was excited for governance in the nonprofit space to be recognized and for the Community Foundation itself to be spotlighted. She was also proud to be the only woman of the five recipients of the award. “I was just very grateful to Millicent for taking the time to elevate a fellow woman on the board and get recognized for the work that this extraordinary board is doing,” Beth said.
“I was so excited and pleased to find out Beth won — she completely deserves this for all the hard work she and her committee have done, and how all of it has made our board even more robust and effective,” Millicent said.
As Governance Chair, Beth leads the way in building a framework for the culture of the organization. She said governance is like the guardrails. “Those accountabilities, those requirements, those relationships that are tethered in writing become structures that people can count on,” Beth said.
“Beth is generous with her time, and truly makes governance fun,” said Sarah MacCarthy, the Community Foundation’s Senior Director of Equity and Impact and staff liaison to the Governance Committee. “She has a great equity lens, collaborates well with staff, and is an expert in nonprofit governance, yet still always comes to the table ready to learn.”
Beth first became acquainted with the Community Foundation when she was hired to help the organization achieve national accreditation eight years ago. She came back for the renewal of the accreditation, later as a temporary grants processor, and as a volunteer in the time between. When the Governance Chair role had an opening, Beth was an easy choice to fill it.
Some of Beth’s work Millicent highlighted includes: her integration of the Community Foundation’s equity values throughout policies, her presentations to the Community Foundation’s nonprofit roundtable and CEO/Executive Director Peer Forum, creating policies for transparency around Vice Chair and Board Chair recruitment and placement, and leading the effort on an information exchange platform for nonprofits to share best practices.
Beth has participated in the Community Foundation’s Equity Cohort and has made a point of incorporating the values of equity and belonging into the Governance Committee’s work.
“I’m so proud of the board. I’m so proud of the staff. I’m so proud of the organization. I am so proud of the Governance Committee because they dig in and do the hard work,” Beth said. “They write policy, they challenge language for better outcomes, and they’re helping move forward processes that make the Community Foundation better.”
Beth and her family moved from San Diego to Park City in 2016. Her background is in labor and employment law as a former California attorney, and those skills help to inform her work as Governance Chair.
She loves Park City and the nonprofit space here because she said there is such a strong sense of belonging and responsibility. When she first moved here, her realtor included a Community Foundation Giving Guide in a welcome basket. To her, this symbolizes the expectation in the community that people who are able to should contribute their time, money, and talents toward uplifting others within it. “There was this sense of ‘you belong in this community, so help it,’” Beth said.
Beth believes her award as Outstanding Director doesn’t belong to her, but rather the entirety of the Community Foundation. She said the award was only possible because of the board, staff, donors, and everyone else involved in the Community Foundation that led to its recognition.
“I just love that the Community Foundation sits in this humble place of — how can we help? — and then they rise to that occasion,” Beth said. “The Community Foundation just serves as this anchor of support. I think that’s the part that really speaks to me because it’s so far-reaching.”
Read more about Beth and the other Outstanding Directors of 2025 at Utah Business’s website.