Local Nonprofits Build Forever Funds through the Community Foundation
The challenge has been met! Seventeen local nonprofits undertook the Outer Banks Community Foundation’s Matching Fund Challenge, issued earlier this year, to raise $2500 each for permanent endowment funds.
And all seventeen groups met or exceeded the challenge, raising needed funds to sustain their organizations in perpetuity.
The Community Foundation matched the dollars raised, $2500 per group, and also offered marketing grants to help the organizations publicize their funds to the public.
The endowments will provide vital, perpetual support for a wide range of local causes, from health care to the arts, fire protection to animal welfare, children’s needs to historic preservation.
“The goal of our challenge was to help diverse local nonprofits establish and build endowments for their organizations’ future,” explained Lorelei Costa, the Community Foundation’s executive director. “An endowment can be so helpful to a nonprofit, because it is invested to provide the organization with sustainable, easy funds each and every year.”
The successful participants in the Matching Fund Challenge were: Beach Food Pantry, Chicamacomico Historical Association, Children & Youth Partnership, Community Care Clinic, Dare County Arts Council, Dare County Boat Builders Foundation, Food for Thought, Friends of the Outer Banks History Center, Hatteras Island Cancer Foundation, Hatteras Village Civic Association, Interfaith Community Outreach, NC Lions VIP Fishing Tournament, Ocracoke Fire Protection Association, Ocracoke Community Radio, Outer Banks Hotline, Outer Banks Relief Foundation, and Outer Banks Sporting Events.
Five additional organizations received marketing grants to publicize their funds: Dare Education Foundation, Elizabethan Gardens, First Flight Society, Ocracoke Youth Center, and Outer Banks SPCA.
“Here on the Outer Banks, the competition for grants, donations, and business sponsorships has become so incredibly fierce,” said Ms. Costa. “An endowment, on the other hand, is invested to provide dependable funding for a nonprofit for countless years ahead.”
“In establishing endowments, these nonprofits are investing in their future and creating ideal vehicles for donors who wish to give them sustaining support,” added Ms. Costa.
Anyone can contribute to any of the endowments created through the Matching Fund Challenge, or to any of the 40 other nonprofit and church endowments managed by the Community Foundation. Donors are encouraged to donate online at www.obcf.org/donate, or by contacting the Community Foundation at 252-261-8839.
