The ConnectNetwork will expand and improve with a three-year $240,000 grant. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation recently awarded half the grant, $120,000 to the Community Foundation Serving Richmond and Central Virginia. The foundation, which operates in partnership with the ConnectNetwork and Virginia Commonwealth University, will match the grant.

As an aspiring biologist, Nancy B. Stutts conducted research in a Venezuelan cloud forest. But after moving to Richmond in 1980, she knew a career in tropical biology wasn’t likely. She shifted her attention to nonprofits and eventually conceived a Web-based networking system that links nonprofit, business, government and civic-minded leaders.