A community foundation serving all of Crawford County, the Crawford Heritage Foundation is dedicated to improving the quality of life in the region, helping people make the most of their philanthropy by giving to endowed funds. Grant awards support both the causes donors care about and worthwhile programs selected by the foundation. Assets of Crawford Heritage Foundation have grown to $8 million.

What do you need to do to move your organization ahead in 2008 and what challenges do you face?

“This is the Crawford Heritage Foundation’s tenth anniversary. We’ll be building on our past successes in 2008. And, we’ll celebrate how far we’ve come in our work to improve the quality of life in our region.

We now manage 79 funds which benefit 85 different organizations, scholarships and charitable purposes.  Those funds total more than $8 million. From them, we’ve made grants of more than $1.7 million dollars in our first ten years. We’ll award an additional $360,000 this year.

Our biggest challenge is educating people about what a community foundation does. They may not realize that they don’t really give to the Foundation, they give through it. We permanently invest the money entrusted to us. Each and every year—forever—part of that investment is paid out in the form of grants to support the causes our donors care about as well as worthwhile programs selected by the Foundation.

We want people to think deeply how they can make a difference in our community through their charitable giving. We encourage them to consider how much they will give, how their charitable gifts are to be used and whether they will give now or later in life.

Philanthropically minded people can often make the greatest impact with a bequest. That’s why we work hard to remind them to include charitable giving as part of their wills and estate planning. We especially appreciate those who notify us of a planned gift so that we are prepared to fulfill their charitable intentions.”