Welcome to the first edition of our new e-newsletter! You are receiving this newsletter as we have your email address on file as donor, partner, grantee, or other valuable constituent of the Montana Community Foundation (MCF). We sincerely hope you find the information and news valuable, but if you would like to opt-out from further email communications from us, please use the "Safe Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of this email.
This year we're celebrating 26 years serving philanthropy in Montana. After eight months here, I continue to be awed and inspired by the many hands that make this work light. I am fortunate enough to work with a highly-motivated, enthusiastic team of professionals that have come together with a common goal we hope you share: to cultivate a culture of giving so Montana communities can flourish. We are thrilled to be an agent of the philanthropists who care so much about preserving and shaping Montana's future.
In this pursuit, MCF is dedicated to great care in ensuring donor intent is followed, as well as thoughtful and prudent investment management. Our hope, our dream and our goal is to keep Montana the place we love to call home for generations to come. We sincerely thank you for your support and if you are new to MCF, hope you will join us and thousands of other Montanans in this vital effort.
Sincerely,
Mary K. Rutherford, MA, CFRE
Chief Executive Officer
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The generosity of our donors is amazing to behold and so is seeing that generosity at work here in Montana. In July alone, MCF made 35 grants totaling more than $220,000 across Montana. To date in 2014, MCF has made nearly 350 grants totaling more than $1.2 million!
Did you enjoy an outdoor symphony this summer? Attend service last Sunday in a beautifully maintained church? Take your daughter to a program at the YWCA? Watch a play at your local theatre? Perhaps attended a fundraising event for your local community foundation? The list goes on and on. From youth art projects in Havre to collegiate sports at Montana's colleges and universities and everything in between, our grants are hard at work across the state.
Learn more about giving back to Montana here.
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Montana Community Foundation recently made a grant to the Alpine Theatre Project in Whitefish, MT making successful productions like "Big River" possible for the community to enjoy. (Aaron Vega and Nicholas Ward in Alpine Theatre Project's production of Big River. 2014 Photo courtesy of Brenda Ahearn).
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A New Face for Planned Giving
in Montana
Amy Sullivan is a new face to MCF, but certainly not a new face to Montana or the foundation world. She joins us as the Director of the Montana Office of Gift Planning. Before MCF, Amy served as the president and Chief Executive Officer of the Montana History Foundation. In her professional career she's also run her own association management and government affairs business, as well as managed a multimillion dollar federal voting rights project.
A Montana native, Amy started her career in journalism working in Chicago and Great Falls before spending eight years working for publicly elected officials including two governors, a congressman and a United States senator.
So what exactly does a director of gift planning do you might ask? A good question and the answer has nothing to do with getting your birthday wish list just right. Instead, Amy works with donors on the gifts they want to give back to Montana. As our resident expert in planned giving (things like gift annuities, charitable trusts and some estate gifts), Amy will work as convener, educator and development officer in support of Montana philanthropy.
If you've ever asked yourself or considered the question "How can I invest my money so it helps me, my family AND Montana?", you should give Amy a call. If you haven't asked the question, we hope you will...then give Amy a call!
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Did you say "MarComm"?
Our new Marketing and Communications Director recently returned to Big Sky Country from the bright lights and fast-paced business of Las Vegas. Riley Meredith is another native Montanan. He's also one of those lucky enough to have found a way to return to the state after seeing the "big wide world."
In Vegas, Riley helped manage marketing efforts for one of the world's largest gaming technology companies. He also spent time as a division director at a public relations and marketing agency, and even a few years as a commercial real estate agent. You'd simply be amazed at what people will pay for giant plots of desert.
Here at MCF, Riley manages all our marketing and communication efforts. From ads, press releases and brochures, to websites, social media and more, Riley is here to make sure our stories, your stories and Montana's stories are told.
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Judging scholarship applications isn't an easy task. There can be hundreds of applicants for a single award and many - sometimes even all - of those applicants are both deserving and in need of financial support. It's also a process that takes a great deal of time, dedication and hard work. Judges wish they could give scholarships to every deserving student, but instead they face the challenge of carefully considering each applicant and awarding the best possible candidate.
Here at MCF, scholarships are a huge part of what we do to help preserve the future of Montana. This year alone, we awarded approximately 150 scholarships to the tune of nearly $265,000. While most of these scholarships have a designated group of judges, some do not.
Enter the wonderful folks from the Montana Retired Educators Association (MREA). These amazing people, who have already given so much to Montana through education, continue to give by volunteering their time and expertise to judge these scholarships. We cannot thank them enough for their hard work and generosity. We hope you'll take a moment to learn more about the MREA and support their efforts.
Interested in establishing your own scholarship fund to support education in Montana? Click here to find out more.
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Hazel Johnson, Margaret Crennen, Marilyn Hamer, Tom Altmaier and Karen Richardson of the Montana Retired Educators Association volunteering their time at MCF to judge scholarship applications for the 2014-15 academic year.
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We had our first staff retreat as a new team this August. Our first day was spent at the beautiful Tizer Gardens in Jefferson City, where we worked, played, planned and shared. The morning of our second day was spent on leadership exercises, team building and sharing our department work plans for this fiscal year.
After a quick lunch, we made our way to the new Helena Food Share administrative offices where we volunteered to help get a fresh coat of paint on the walls. There's nothing like a little hard and good work to bring a new team together.
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During their staff retreat, the MCF team volunteered to help paint the new Helena Food Share administrative offices.
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