WHITEFISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC

The Whitefish Community Foundation works to help local nonprofits benefit our community through the following:\n1. Helping to build endowments for long term sustainable funding through education, helping with planned giving program, endowment challenge grant program and assisting donors with the Montana Endowment Tax Credit. \n2. Promoting a season of philanthropy through the Great Fish Community Challenge - A matching challenge grant program while helping nonprofits cut down on fundraising expenses. The Community Foundation organizes and covers 100% of the costs of the challenge. \n3. Offering Community Grant Program with two grant cycles annually, to help smaller nonprofits fund important and many times critical programs and projects, as well as a Micro Grant Program to help with urgent, unexpected and sometimes emergency needs on a monthly basis.\n4. Working with donors to help further their charitable giving through the Designated, Donor Advised, and Legacy Fund programs.\n5. Working with nonprofits to create programs to help address the increasing number of child homelessness through the Kids Fund. \n6. Strengthen nonprofit governance through the NpDP program, offering regular workshops to nonprofits for free. \n7. Support nonprofits dealing with the affects of COVID-19 and other crises through emergency grants from the Community Emergency Response Fund.

The Whitefish Community Foundation works with donors through the Circle of Giving program to encourage philanthropy and offer a sustainable source of funding for all Community Foundation's grant programs. The Circle helps donors get involved in the community by connecting them to nonprofits doing important work locally. Donations to the Circle fund all of the foundation's grant programs. \n\nAdditionally, the Foundation works to build its permanent endowment fund through legacy gifts, planned gifts and more to offer another source of sustainable funding for the Foundation's operations and grant programs. \n\nThe Foundation works to offer effective grant making practices that not only provide important annual funding to local nonprofits, but also teach nonprofits how to raise money through the Great Fish Community Challenge program. Grant programs include Donor Advised Funds, Community Grants, Micro Grants, Major Community Project Grants, The Kids Fund Program, Great Fish Community Challenge, A Day of Giving & Unity, and the Community Emergency Response Fund.

Whitefish Community Foundation has grown to $45 million in assets and serves the community as a community leader by inspiring the community to give. Over the 20 year history, the Foundation has awarded over $47 million in grants to nonprofits. The grant programs have grown in the amount awarded and the type of nonprofits served. The many grant programs offer different levels of support for nonprofits in order to cater to all sizes of organizations. The annual Great Fish Community Challenge has grown to serve more nonprofits every year and increases the number of people giving to nonprofits in the community. The Nonprofit Development Partnership (NpDP) helps nonprofits grow stronger, improve their branding and marketing, increase transparency, and improve financial oversight and reporting.

The Whitefish Community Foundation has established excellent grant programs that have become a very necessary part of our community. we will continue to work on developing a larger permanent endowment fund to support the Foundations grant programs, as well as building a sustainable source of operating revenue. Increasing the Foundation's Advised Fund assets will help grow the administration fees that support the Community Foundation's operations. We have strategically lowered the fund administration fees to be more competitive and attractive to donors looking to move or open a Donor Advised Fund. The sliding scale fee allows the Foundation to be very competitive with commercial Donor Advised Fund. \n\nUnlike commercial Donor Advised Fund organizations, when a community foundation holds a Donor Advised Fund, it gives us direct access to the donors and the ability to communicate the needs of the community to them. It has been shown that donors that hold Donor Advised Funds in a community foundation are more in-tune with the community's needs and will give more funding to that community.\n\nThe Great Fish Community Challenge has been well received by the community and more nonprofits apply to be in it each year. We are expanding our programs as much as possible each year to try to accommodate more nonprofits. We have also moved our Community Grant Program to a twice a year grant cycle in order to better serve the needs of smaller nonprofits that do not have the ability to participate in the Great Fish Community Challenge.