As we close out 2022 - our 25th anniversary year - and launch into a new year, we have much to celebrate, including the continued growth of our Community Foundation and positive impact in our communities. We are pleased to share some highlights from our last fiscal year. (Please note these numbers are preliminary and have not yet been audited.)
2022 Highlights
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$550,000 in Dreaming Forward grants to celebrate our 25th anniversary
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$5.5 million in total grants and scholarships distributed
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$8.3 million in new donations and legacy gifts
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19 new donor funds established
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Over $145 million in total assets under management
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New Office Home for Western Colorado Community Foundation
Center for Philanthropy
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Come visit us in our new home!
New Address: 128 North 5th Street, Grand Junction, CO 81501
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A year ago, our Board of Directors put finishing touches on a new 5-year strategic plan for our organization, Dreaming Forward: WCCF 2026. One of the many exciting goals in our plan is to secure a larger and more permanent office home for our organization and to explore the creation of a Center for Philanthropy for western Colorado. Some unexpected opportunities arose for us last year and we moved ahead with a planning and feasibility process to review multiple options, weighing the pros and cons of purchasing an existing building or new construction.
We are pleased to announce the exciting news that we have entered into a lease/ purchase option on a beautiful historic downtown building for our Center for Philanthropy! We moved in over President's Day weekend and are busy securing donations and financing for the mid-year purchase of the property.
Located in downtown Grand Junction at 5th and Rood, the new offices will provide three times as much space for our organization, including room to grow for an expanding staff team, four different sized meeting rooms, and flexibility to host on-site events including nonprofit meetings and training programss, donor events, education forums and other purposes.
We are in the early stages of planning out how the space will be used to better fulfill our mission of connecting people who care (our donors) with causes that matter (the many great nonprofit organizations working to address needs and make our community better). Stay tuned for updates and we look forward to welcoming our donors and friends into our new space soon!
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2022 Dreaming Forward Grants
Capacity Building Grants Help Partner Nonprofit Organizations Get to the Next Level
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In celebration of our 25th Anniversary, WCCF invested $550,000 to help ten nonprofit partner organizations to "dream forward," providing grant funding directed for their own organizational development, capacity-building and/or program expansion.
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Riverside Educational Center (REC) received a $20,000 Dreaming Forward grant for leadership development and strategic planning. REC has experienced significant growth over the past four years in response to increased need for programs serving youth. During this time, REC also had the opportunity to move into a larger space that houses their quickly expanding staff and programs. A Dreaming Forward grant paid for a consultant to work with their board of directors and leadership staff to focus in on their mission and values and complete a 5-year strategic plan. A new director of development has been hired, and REC is well on its way to success with their New Home for REC capital campaign to purchase their own building.
"The planning grant from the Community Foundation helped us lay the groundwork needed to implement a longer term vision and move forward with a $1.5 million capital campaign to purchase our building," notes Joy Hudak, Executive Director, Riverside Educational Center.
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For over 40 years, Housing Resources of Western Colorado (HRWC) has helped low-income families and individuals with affordable rentals, self-help home ownership, home improvement and housing education and counseling. HRWC recognized that the largest barrier to home ownership for many of their clients was saving for a down-payment, closing costs, and having qualified credit scores, for an affordable monthly mortgage payment. With the help of a $25,000 Dreaming Forward grant from our Community Foundation, HRWC has established a Purchase Assistance Loan Program to help clients with down-payment assistance loans. This program recently received preliminary approval for $1 million from the City of Grand Junction's American Recovery Plan Act (ARPA) funding.
Notes Emilee Powell, Executive Director for HRWC, "The Dreaming Forward grant is helping us build the Purchase Assistance program from the ground up. It takes a lot of staff time and outside expertise to design the product details, create policies and workflows, ensure compliance with fair lending rules, develop the partnerships with other local organizations and businesses, and raise the capital to fund these unique loans. The Dreaming Forward grant is helping us do that work, which ultimately will leverage millions of dollars of funding to help local families close the gap between home prices and their affordability."
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Scholarships Open
Our annual scholarship application process is now open! Students can apply for one or more of the 36 scholarship funds managed by our Community Foundation through a single application. Scholarship awards range from $500 to $5,000, and many are renewable for up to four years. Criteria for scholarships vary and may include GPA, chosen field of study or college, financial need, and other factors. Scholarships are available for vocational training programs as well as two- and four-year college degree programs.
The deadline to apply is March 3rd for graduating high school seniors.
In 2022, our regional Community Foundation distributed a total of $700,000 in scholarships to 260 students.
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Reflections from the President |
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Earlier this week, I presented our State of the Community Foundation Annual Briefing to our Board of Directors at their first quarterly board meeting of the new year. I was smiling very, very broadly as I prepared my presentation remarks. Despite a dismal investment year that impacted everyone's retirement accounts and institutional holdings, our 25th anniversary year in 2022 was an extraordinary one in so many ways.
We organized a number of special initiatives and events to celebrate our 25th anniversary year. You can read more about our Dreaming Forward grants in the stories above. We rolled out our own organization's new five-year strategic plan, Dreaming Forward: WCCF 2026. I am pleased to report to our readers what I reported to our board - that we have made substantial progress on many of the goals we were giving ourselves five years to accomplish. Specifically, thanks to our generous donors and some significant estate gifts, our total assets made a big jump as of year end 2022. And, our dream of owning our own office building and a Center for Philanthropy are becoming a reality so much faster than anyone could have imagined.
On February 21st we opened for business in our new offices at 128 North 5th Street. We are delighted to find a permanent home in downtown Grand Junction, in a historic 120-year old building that has been meticulously restored, and reflects in architecture a key quality of our organization: Grounded in History, Looking to the Future. Almost everyone in the community has some kind of connection to the building, be it attending a concert in the 2nd floor ballroom (up those rickety stairs) or buying a musical instrument or lessons for children at Roper Music when they occupied the building. History buffs fondly remember the International Order of Odd Fellows building at the unpaved corner of 5th Street and Rood.
The next several months are going to be busy as we work on subdividing the building into condo units in anticipation of purchasing our north side of the building in late Summer. We are getting ready to launch our capital campaign to raise the funds we need to purchase, improve, furnish and equip our new offices with state-of-the-art technology for community meetings, donor appreciation, training and education events. We would be happy to give a tour to anyone interested in supporting our capital campaign. We are very excited to have room to grow, with multiple and flexible spaces to expand our philanthropic programming. The new Center for Philanthropy will be an invaluable asset for the larger community - a place where donors, nonprofit leaders, government and community members who care about their communities can come together to meet and learn and work on solving community problems together.
Please come by and visit us in our new home once we are settled in at the end of February!
-- Anne Wenzel
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The Western Colorado Community Foundation is confirmed in compliance with National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations by the Council on Foundations.
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