The Greene County Community Foundation announced that its “I’m with Alice!” fundraising campaign during February was a major success, with $56,105 in pledges to help build the organization’s endowment. That nearly doubled the campaign’s goal of $30,000.
Additional contributions are expected to arrive in the next few weeks, too.
The campaign’s name honors the generosity of the late Alice Walters of Jefferson, who died last June 22 at 104 years old. Just as the fundraising campaign was being organized late last fall, Foundation board members learned that Walters’ estate would be donating between $475,000 and $495,000 to the Foundation’s endowment, according to the estate’s attorney David Morain.
Campaign chairperson Chuck Offenburger said then he and others thought only briefly about calling off the effort to raise another $30,000. “But I quickly concluded that calling off the campaign would actually be dis-honoring the great gift from Alice Walters,” Offenburger said. “Instead, we should intensify our efforts, consider her gift a great challenge, give what we can, build the Foundation’s endowment, and see all our non-profit organizations benefit on into perpetuity.”
Another goal was for the campaigners to have at least 150 conversations with Greene Countians about the 15-year-old foundation and how it works. The final count of those individual chats was 152, but many more people heard the story when campaign leaders addressed several clubs and other civic organizations.
The largest contribution in the campaign was $20,000 from one family, and another pledged $8,000. There were 13 donors of $1,000. The smallest contribution was $25.
Karen Shannon, president of the Foundation board, said that with Walters’ bequest, “whatever donations the rest of us can donate will help do even bigger things for generations to come here. There will be great people in Greene County in the future who will really make it work. They will do Alice proud.”
She said many volunteers went well beyond their comfort zone in having conversations with potential donors and asking for pledges. “The impact of your work will be felt far into the future as various non-profit organizations apply and receive funds from the GCCF,” Shannon told them. “How incredibly generous of you to step up as a leader in this new, outside-the-box way of growing an endowment, so we can continue our mission of ‘working for good, forever!’ as the foundation’s motto says. We appreciate you and so does Greene County, now and always.”
The campaign was managed by David Sherry, who heads the Boone based firm The Sherry Group, which assists non-profit groups with fundraising. Sherry was earlier the longtime executive director of the YMCA Camp near Boone.
More information about the Greene County Community Foundation is available, and online donations can be made at https://forgreenecounty.org/. Donations can be mailed to the foundation in care of Home State Bank at 115 W. State Street, in Jefferson. And the bank’s Sherry Palmer can answer questions about donations at 515-386-2131.
While the campaign was underway, the foundation received applications for its 2022 distribution of funds to non-profits in the county. There were 34 applications received, asking for more than $400,000. Of those, 13 applications were fully funded and five more were partially funded, from the total of $208,307 the Foundation had available to give out this year. Those awards will be announced at a ceremony April 4 at 7 pm at the First Presbyterian Church in Jefferson.
Don Van Gilder, past president of the Foundation who is overseeing the grants program this year, noted the $200,000 included $160,000 given to the Foundation by Grow Greene County Gaming Corp. The Community Foundation’s endowment fund provided an additional $48,307 to award to non-profits.
“By continuing to build our endowment, the Foundation will always have that additional money to award for projects,” Van Gilder said. “That extra amount – the $48,307 this year and it will be more in the future – really makes a difference in a small rural area like Greene County.”
Current president Shannon put a nice conclusion on the effort.
“The power of believing in the work of the Foundation, the importance of educating others, and building the endowment proved to be a hugely successful venture for the GCCF last month,” she said. “The friends and neighbors of Greene County who committed to ‘being with Alice’ by helping grow the endowment are part of something bigger than a donation. They changed the future of Greene County, and impacted future projects, visions, and hopes for generations to come. Thank you for all who gave their resources and time to learn about the endowment and the story of the GCCF.”
