Foundation Grateful to Stackpole Hall

Recently Paula Fritz Eddy, the Executive Director from the Elk County Community Foundation (ECCF), met with the Board of Trustees from the Stackpole-Hall Foundation to thank them and report to the Trustees how their investment in the Elk County Community Foundation has contributed to the success of the organization.

Since the inception of ECCF, Stackpole-Hall Foundation has provided, initial operating dollars; encouraged trustees to support ECCF; and ongoing guidance and assistance from their staff, Dr. William Conrad and Dennis Bonanno. Over the years Stackpole-Hall’s support has been nearly three quarters of a million dollars. ECCF has been able to give their total support back to the community two and half time and by year end they will have grown to nearly 10 time their combined gifts. “Because of the support from the Stackpole-Hall Foundation, the Community Foundation was able to concentrate on developing relationships and establishing named funds” said Mrs. Eddy. She went on to say that “ We did not have to do major fundraisers that would compete with the agencies we are trying to help with our dollars.”. ECCF remains grateful to the Stackpole-Hall Foundation for their support and partnership that helps strengthen our region.

Unfortunately, due to weather predications a number of the out of town Trustees were not able to be there.

Pictured are Sitting L to R

Heather Conrad; Deborah Dick Pontzer; Dauer Stackpole

Standing is Larry Whiteman Jr., Ham Johnson; Paula Fritz Eddy; Bill Corard and Rich Masson

Missing from Photo are:
Laurey Stackpole Turner; Doug Dobson; Francis Grandinetti, John Saalfield, Megan Hall, Alexander Sheble-Hall

2012 Women Who Care Support Local Organizations

2012 Women Who Care Support Local Organizations

Women Who care disburses their 2012 grant checks to four deserving
organizations. Women Who Care(WWC) was established to provide a vehicle for
non-profit organizations to apply for funds to strengthen the quality of life
for families in our local communities. The organization is a project of the Elk
County Community Foundation who provides administrative support for the group.
To date, the group has given $43,400 to local charities since its inception in
just three granting cycles.

This year’s grant recipients are Elk County Children and Youth Services,
Guardian Angel Center, Johnsonburg Borough, and Penn State Extension
Office/4-H. Each group had to not only submit a written application but also present
a 5 minute summary of their project to the current membership, who then voted
for the project that they felt was important to them and the community. Members who were not able to attend were
provided an absentee ballot.

Elk County Children and Youth Services will
provide children with a need a bed and bed linens. There have been children
sleeping on couches and floors. It is a fact that children who get a good night
sleep do better scholastically. Providing a bed for a child means a sense of
security, and something the child can call his or her own. They received $6000 for this program.

Guardian Angel Center will pilot a
disposable diaper program. During the
first 24 months of life an infant uses approximately 3400 disposable diapers at
a cost of $.25 – $.50 each totally in excess of $1000. They are ready to and
will be able to make diapers a regular item for distribution in 2013 with their
$1500 grant.

The Johnsonburg Borough currently
maintains two playgrounds. They have been working to upgrade the Johnsonburg
Community Center Playground’s handicap accessibility and due to increase usage
of the East End playground, they plan to upgrade the equipment at that location
with the help of their $2,500 grant and the help of the Johnsonburg Rotary Club.

The Penn State Cooperative Extension office and the 4-H program will be instituting a Robotics
Club in the community. Monies awarded by
this grant will be used to purchase LEGO Mindstorm Robotics Kits and computers
and software to run them. This $6,000 project
specifically focuses on a need in our community. Local businesses have expressed a need for
more engineers and problem solvers. The
Robotics program will help interested youth build on these skills and hopefully
create interest in engineering and science careers

The WWC Steering Committee is announcing a Holiday,
“Donor Advisor for a Day “membership drive” for the 2013 Granting Cycle.

This year we have an additional $400 in granting money
available. The Steering Committee is offering
an incentive for new and renewing members.
All paid or partially paid memberships by Dec 20th for the
2013 year will be entered into a drawing to be a “Donor Advisor for a Day” . The Winners will be able
to give their favorite charity a special Holiday donation. One new member and
one renewing member will be chosen randomly and will have a $200 donation to
give to their favorite non-profit/501c3 !!

The more membership money we have the more grant money we
can give out to our community! Besides
paying the membership dues, the only other expectation of a member is to vote
on the grant applications either at our annual meeting or by absentee proxy.

All women are invited to become a member of WWC. We would like membership Commitments for the
2013 Granting cycle in by December 31, 2012 but will accept memberships through
the spring provided all dues are fulfilled by June 1, 2013. These dollars will
determine the amount available for grants for the fall of 2013. An
application form is available on the Elk County Community Foundation’s website
www.elkcountyfoundation.com. Look for
the Women Who Care tab on the right side next to the news releases.

Pictured are from left to right is:

Carole Harshbargar, WWC Steering Committee; Jane Bryndel,
WWC Steering Committee; Cly Hornung, Guardian Angels Center; Natalie Aiello,
4-H; Ron King, Johnsonburg Borough; Barb Duffy, WWC Steering Committee; and
Char Floravit, WWC Steering Committee.

Meeting with NCPRPDC and ECCF.

Photo by Joseph Bell

North Central Pennsylvania Regional
Planning and Development Commission [NCPRPDC] officials were joined Wednesday
morning by Paula Fritz Eddy, the executive director of the Elk County Community
Foundation [ECCF], for a lengthy discussion regarding rural community
development philanthropy.

Commission explores philanthropy

By Joseph Bell

RidgwayRecord Editor

North Central Pennsylvania Regional Planning and Development
Commission [NCPRPDC] officials were joined Wednesday morning by Paula Fritz
Eddy, the executive director of the Elk County Community Foundation [ECCF], for
a lengthy discussion regarding rural community development philanthropy.

“This is something that I’ve been thinking about, just
how North Central can position itself appropriately in this conversation,”
said Eric Bridges, executive director of North Central. “Back in April, I
had the opportunity to sit down with Paula [Fritz Eddy] and share some of my
insights and my background, and we made a connection and established a
rapport.

“We felt it was time for the commission and the
foundation to initiate a dialogue so that we could begin talking about
developing a better appreciation for what potential collaboration and
partnership opportunities are out there.”

In 2010, the Community Foundation of North Central
Pennsylvania [CFNC] was established to enable discussion in neighboring
counties and communities that have not been served by a community foundation
within their area. The CFNC is a parent organization to ECCF and other
potential communities that would want to serve the philanthropic needs in their
county, borough, or even township. The board and staff of CFNC continue to look
for opportunities to serve areas that border Elk County as well.

Eddy provided background information to North Central board
members from outside the immediate area, including Cameron, Clearfield,
Jefferson, McKean, and Potter counties during her presentation.

“About four or five years ago, we began that discussion
of changing our name or having a parent corporation, and a year or so ago, we
did that,” Eddy said.

The goal, however, is still the same.

“Together, a community foundation is a platform for
building a community,” Eddy said. “Our No. 1 goal is to build
permanent name component funds, but we work with all sorts of donors–
donor-advised funds, we have specific-to-agency funds– just whatever works for
the donor, and for the agency and the group. The role of a community foundation
is a builder and caretaker of permanent funds and resources.

“We serve as providers to donors, grant makers, we’re
conveners, catalysts and collaborators with the community, and our staff is on
volunteer boards and groups throughout the county. A number of those are
tri-county,” Eddy said.

Another positive aspect of a nonprofit endowment fund is
that the fund itself remains a permanent source of income that provides
stability through economic ups and downs.

“It’s a place where you can have dollars that are going
to be specific to a particular project, resource, or use for emergency at times
when there aren’t enough resources,” Eddy said. “When organizations
are short of those funds in the future, the endowment assets help ensure that
the resources are always available.”

One endowment specific to a community is the Ridgway Charitable Fund.

“It was set up in an estate plan by an individual who
specified that she wanted five residents of the community to review competitive
grant applications for any nonprofit or religious group within Ridgway
Borough,” Eddy said. “We do that once a year and we grant somewhere
between $18,000 to $20,000 from that fund on an annual basis. It’s dollars that
normally would not be there for that community.”

The Ridgway Charitable Fund is just one small example; for
Eddy, the benefits of a community foundation are plentiful.

“By having us, there is no need to pay outside
investment advisors, legal counsel, or financial institutes,” Eddy said.
“We have an excellent investment committee– businessmen, bankers,
consultants, accountants– we have a really good group on that committee right
now.”

ECCF staff are able to handle sophisticated gifts as well,
including those regarding property and stock, and they are able to save on
legal and accounting fees as one 990 tax form is filed for all the affiliates
together under the Community Foundation of North Central Pennsylvania.

“We can do pretty much any grant and each agreement
that we write for funds can be tailored to what the donor wants,” Eddy
said. “That’s what it’s about, working with the donors and determining
what they want. A donor could be a municipality or a group of concerned
citizens for our community, it could be whatever we want.

“When the grants come in to our office, along with a
committee, we check the credibility of the charity, the capability of the
organizations, the feasibility and importance of the project, and so forth.
After the grants are made, we do a follow-up for each of them as well to see
how everything went.”

To date, ECCF is one of 38 community foundations in
Pennsylvania; there are reportedly over 700 throughout the United States. ECCF
currently manages 86 funds with roughly $6 million in assets.

“The foundation uses revenues to provide grants and
scholarships to nonprofits as well,” Eddy said. “Those scholarships,
as being an important thing to donors, a lot of people bring their scholarships
through us because we’re a PATH partner with PHEAA, meaning that if students
are eligible, they will get PATH matching dollars.

“I was notified this year that of the 86 students who
received scholarships from us last year, 41 or 42 of them will receive a
matching grant, totaling nearly $40,000.”

The Ridgway Area School District reportedly brings their
scholarships to ECCF and the Kane Area School District is currently in the
process of moving most of their scholarships to ECCF as well. St. Marys Area
School District did so a number of years ago.

“The biggest reason concerning why people decide to
give to a community foundation is because they’re local and the money is going
to stay local,” Eddy said. “Working at the American Cancer Society
for 14 years, I can’t say how many times someone would tell me that they wanted
their money to stay local.

“They really believed in what [ACS] did when we spoke
to people, they wanted a cure but we weren’t going to have research done at Elk
Regional. So I couldn’t say that their money would stay local but with [ECCF],
it will stay local.”

In building endowment funds to benefit communities for
literally forever, Eddy said the foundation’s future appears sound and safe.

“That’s one thing you say, that money will be forever,
and we use a formula to help make that happen,” Eddy said. “Our hope
is that with this new parent organization, we can help bring affiliates across
the area to be involved with us as well.”

For Bridges, the concept of a community foundation and rural
community development philanthropy go hand in hand with the point driven home
by the Nebraska Community Foundation [NCF], a “national model for its
innovative work in community development philanthropy and for its
groundbreaking work in using the intergenerational transfer of wealth to craft
community endowment-building goals.”

“The theme of this discussion is rural community
development philanthropy and to my perspective, the real, true opportunity that
is afforded us through the community foundation is the
endowment-building,” Bridges said. “Looking at the history of this
organization [ECCF], over $1.5 million of tax dollars without bureaucracy
intervention– they’re solicited locally, managed locally, controlled and
implemented locally, think about that. As a person in an organization that
depends heavily on the public taxpayer dollars, one of the things we always say
is, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just do what it is that we know we need to
do– just get rid of the regulations and the bureaucracy and we know what we’re
doing and where it needs to go.’

“I’ll offer that through the community foundations and
their model, and through the high level of charitable commitment in the
community, we have the ability to do that. The decisions on where those
community foundation dollars go are not made in Harrisburg or city hall in St.
Marys, or Washington, D.C.– they’re made by individuals in the community who
presumably know where those assets and resources need to go.”

Using NCF as a model on a much larger scale, Bridges said
Nebraska has enjoyed unparalleled success through their organization, powered
largely by estate donations throughout the state.

NCF reportedly serves 220 community, organizational and
donor-advised affiliated funds in 238 communities located in 79 Nebraska
counties. NCF and its affiliated funds have reinvested $138.6 million in
Nebraska since 1993.

“When I was involved in community development and
philanthropy, initially that was the area that people were participating in,
the fun part. ‘Wow, we get to give out these grants.’ It was about six months
to a year in that process where the conversation changed. It was more about the
transformative nature that endowment-building brings,” Bridges said.
“Beyond just the grants, we’re seeing that communities are being
transformed. Endowment-building provides those opportunities. We talked about
it all the time, transforming different things throughout the community.

“The beauty of the community foundation tool is that
it’s like having your own personal private foundation without all the headaches
and paperwork; if you have something that you care passionately about and what
to contribute resources to, you can do that, and it probably takes one or two
phone calls to [ECCF] to get that going. It’s easy to partner and connect but
thinking broadly, if we can get our arms around the rural community development
philanthropy, the possibilities are endless.”

Farmers National Bank Presents Check to Community Foundation

Farmers National Bank Presents Check to Elk County Community Foundation

Recently Famers National Bank presented a $3,500 check to the Elk County Community Foundation. These funds will be included in the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program (EITC) which then will make grants available to area public schools to support innovative educational programs that do not fall within the typical academic program. The funds for these innovative programs are administered and distributed through the foundation, which has been designated to serve as an Educational Improvement Organization by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development.

During 2011 the Elk County Community Foundation spent $32,400 through the Educational Improvement Tax Credit Program . St. Marys, Johnsonburg and Ridgway Area School Districts were able to apply for grants for programming. These grants impacted nearly 3,500 students throughout the county.

TheJohnsonburg Area School District has used the grant money to update and purchase equipment that included whiteboards, LCD projectors, laptops and numerous other pieces of equipment. It supplied many of their teachers with updated equipment and also it provided some of their teacher’s technology equipment for the first time.

The Ridgway School District was able to purchase a total of four smart classrooms and on smart response system. Their goal is to outfit all of the classrooms with smart technology in order for the students to have the knowledge they need to compete in our changing world. These responders work with existing technology in the classroom to allow students to respond instantaneously to questions from the teacher. The results are then graphed on the SmartBoard in the classroom which allows the teacher to effectively assess student performance.

At St. Marys Area School District their goal is to continue to provide the teachers and students the resources to be competitive in the 21st
century. The grant monies were used to purchase technology for the district. An additional four interactive whiteboards and accessories were purchased and installed in the Middle School. The interactive white board will enable the teachers and students to maximize the
on-line resources. An additional laptop was also purchased for use in the training for the District staff.

Inaddition to Farmers National Bank, other businesses that contributed though the State EITC program this year was PNC
Bank, EQT Productions, Highmark Casualty Insurance and Open Flow. Any entity authorized to do business in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and subject to certain taxes is eligible to apply. Tax Credits are limited to 75% of the businesses contribution with a aximum of $100,000 annually. If a business agrees to make the same contribution for two consecutive tax years, it may receive a tax credit equal to 90% of its contribution.

If businesses wish to participate, they must submit a brief application to the DCED. The application can be found at www.inventpa.com.
The Foundation also has applications and further information available to assist with the business application process.

Foundation Moves to New Location

ST. MARYS – Two area organizations that have provided support to Elk County communities over
the years held a ribbon-cutting Thursday afternoon to celebrate their new
shared space in the Franklin Center in downtown St. Marys.

The Elk County Community Foundation (ECCF) and St. Marys Area Economic
Development Corp. (EDC) will now make their headquarters inside the center.

ECCF is a nonprofit organization which manages endowed funds established by
donors and then awards that funding locally to individuals, nonprofit
organizations and others.

The Elk County Community Foundation also took this
opportunity to present 10 grants recently approved by the Foundation
Board.  These grants are funded by the
Elk County Economic and Community Development fund and the general unrestricted
granting dollars Fund.  This year they
had a total of $32,000 to grant from these funds with request of over
$82,000.  We had 17 agency request money
and we were able to grant to 13.  A few
if these grants were given in the spring but they presented $26,000 at the open
house to the following organiztions:

  • City of St.
    Marys
     is receiving a grant for $3,500 to assist with the
    St. Mary’s Heritage Preservation Group who plans to enhance the downtown area.
  • ECCHS Band
    Boosters
     is receiving $500 to expand their 4th  Musical Instrument program to St. Bonifac and
    St. Leo’s that proved to be very successful in the St. Marys Catholic
    Elementary School.
  • Elk County Catholic School
    System
     is receiving a check for $1000 to support their ne IPad
    initiative they launched this school year.
  • Elk
    Regional Health Center
     is receiving a check for $4000 towards their
    renovation and expansion project.
  • Dickinson
    Center Inc.
      will be receiving
    a $4000 for the Elkwood Arts Division to purchase a spark detection system that
    will help them comply with the current OSHA standards as well as provide safest
    setting possible for their consumers and staff.
  • The
    Johsnonburg Borough
     will receive $3000 towards the resurfacing of
    their downtown playground that needs to comply with ADA and accessible
    standards
  • Mt. Zion
    Historical Society
     is receiving a grant for $1000 to support the installation
    and dedication of the Civil War Memorial.
  • Elk County
    Community Recycling Center
     is receiving a check for $3000 to  install a heating system into the expansion
    area needed accommodate their growing needs.
  • Community
    Nurses Incorporated
     is receiving a grant for $2,000 that will
    purchase GPRS units that will assist their telahealth program.
  • St. Marys
    EDC
     is receiving a check for $4000 to assist with their revolving
    loan program that helps recreate jobs and business for local industry