This is what we do!
Monday, 01 August 2011 21:23
One of our donors has a real passion for helping youth who have lived in foster care or who have lacked caring adults in their lives. In particular, she has a keen desire to assist young people as they become self-sustaining and self-sufficient through education and job-skills training.
Our donor expressed concern recently that more students haven’t applied for scholarships from the fund she established that gives special preference to applicants who have lived in foster care. She asked me what the Community Foundation could do to get the word out to more potential applicants. But more importantly, she wanted to know how she could personally help more young people as they face leaving the foster care system and becoming independent.
After meeting with her, we decided we needed more information. Not just facts and figures. (Yes, we could review numbers and trends.) And, not just the dollar amounts of government-supported financial aid. (Yes, youth have been in foster care have multiple resources for paying for their college tuition.) We wanted stories – real life stories – to identify the obstacles these young people face completing a scholarship application on time, in the appropriate format and with all required documentation
So that our donor could hear first-person stories, I scheduled meetings with Susan Butt, a long-time foster parent with ties to the foster parent community, and Elin Ross, Executive Director of Cakes for Cause, a Frederick County nonprofit that provides job skills training to youth who have aged out of foster care. Susan talked of scholarship application questions that may be misinterpreted or won’t attract scholars meeting the criteria. She enlightened us about foster care youth and the systems in place to assist them. Susan shared that a real need exists for mentoring these youth and their guardians/parents about post-secondary education and how to seek out scholarships. And Elin shared with us that youth must have a funding source for their basic tuition, tools for their new trade, and a firm commitment to succeed in the six-month Cakes for Cause program.
At the end of the second meeting, which included a visit to Moxie Bakery and Cafe, the social enterprise restaurant that funds Cakes for Cause, our donor’s passion for helping young people who have been in foster care was renewed. She felt an increased commitment to providing scholarships, and she is now considering adding to her scholarship fund to benefit more youth.
On the way back to the Community Foundation office, she thanked me for arranging the meetings and for helping her focus her charitable intentions in a way that would make the greatest impact.
I told her there was no need for thanks and gratitude, because this is what we do!
We maintain ongoing relationships with our donors. We adapt our grantsmaking and scholarships to changes in our society. We obtain information so that we help our donors make meaningful decisions. And we focus on creating the greatest impact in our community.
Yes, this is what we do! And it’s For Good. Forever. For Frederick County.
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