Moments in Philanthropy || June 2010
In This Issue
New Funds at Madison Community Foundation
Board Changes – New Board Members
“Building a Civil Society through the Nonprofit Sector” Series begins June 15
Lake Belle View Restoration
Garden Philanthropy – Inch by Inch, Row by Row
Not So Wild Philanthropy
Veggies on the Square
New Funds Recently Opened at Madison Community Foundation
Lake Belle View Restoration Fund
Ralph J. Duncan Large Print Collections Fund
Malawian Orphans Fund
Malawian Orphans Passthrough FundBoard Changes – New Board Members
Madison Community Foundation Board of Governors recognized the many contributions of retiring board members David Reinecke and Sonya Newenhouse.
Outgoing board member David Reinecke was appointed to the Board in 2002 by the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce. David served as Board Chair from 2007 to 2009, as a member of the Executive and Investment Committees.
Sonya Newenhouse completed one four-year term as an At-Large nominee, serving on the Grantmaking Committee for three years.
Richard (Rick) Searer was appointed to the MCF Board as an At-Large member. Currently an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Business, Rick served as President of Kraft North America until retiring in 2009 after a twenty-eight year career with the company. Rick served on the board of United Way Dane County for ten years, including one year as Chair. He also served on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the University of Wisconsin School of Business and currently serves on the Chancellor’s Advisory Board for the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce appointee Jac B. Garner, has been President and CEO of Webcrafters since 1996. Jac is currently a member of the boards of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Bank, Sustain Dane, and Book Manufacturer’s Institute. Jac has also served in various capacities on the board and campaign committees for United Way of Dane County.
“Building a Civil Society through the Nonprofit Sector” Series begins June 15
Kathleen Woit, Madison Community Foundation President, will be a presenter at the UW Center for Nonprofits Communiversity Series, “Building a Civil Society through the Nonprofit Sector”, which starts on June 15 and runs twice a week through July 8.
Registration is free and open to the public; participants can register for the entire series or individual lectures.
The series will examine the current role and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector in advocating for communities and vulnerable populations and explore efforts where nonprofits collaborate with government and business to advance the interests of society.
The sessions in this four-week forum will discuss:
- The scope of civil society and ways communities can benefit from its components
- The role of philanthropy in supporting civil society
- Economic issues facing nonprofit organizations
- The delicate balance of resources needed to provide everyone in a community access to core services.
Kathleen will speak on Thursday, July 1, on “Community Philanthropy and The Role of Community Foundations in Building a Civil Society”.
For information on the series, visit
Building a Civil Society Through the Nonprofit Sector For more information or to register, contact Allison Murray at
armurray@wisc.edu or 608-262-2660.
Lake Belle View Restoration
 |
| Photo courtesy of Jane Kaufman |
Madison Community Foundation recently helped solve a 30 year-old ecological dilemma with a $30,000 challenge grant to the Village of Belleville for the restoration of Lake Belle View and peripheral wetlands. River-borne sediment and phosphorus run off had been wreaking havoc since 1926, resulting in a smelly, shallow lake providing paltry wildlife support and little recreational appeal. A coalition of public, private and governmental groups created a sound restoration plan to improve water quality, increase water habitat depth and diversity, and restore ecological health to the shoreline and beyond.
Bob Sorge, MCF Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, was pleased that the project qualified for funding. “Lake Belle View is literally at the heart of the Belleville community with the downtown and neighborhoods spreading out around it. I can’t imagine a more important asset for the social and economic well-being of Belleville than the lake. A restored lake will not only provide numerous new opportunities for swimming and fishing for residents, but with close proximity to the bike trail and business district, there is also great potential for more economic development.”
Community Development through watershed restoration is a major priority for the Madison Community Foundation. Recent environmental grants have included master planning funding for cleaning/restoration of the Yahara Watershed. This initial funding has lead to several recent grants that are restoration models for the entire watershed. These include funding Friends of Lake Wingra and City of Madison to clean up Vilas Beach, a project with the Dane County Department of Land & Water Resources to minimize phosphorous runoff, and an award to the Natural Heritage Land Trust for permanent land easements via the Vermont Creek Streambank Protection Program in Black Earth.
“Individually, each of these projects has tremendous local impact,” said Tom Linfield, Vice President of Grantmaking and Community Initiatives. “Together, they combine to make real progress on long-term efforts to improve and safeguard Dane County’s natural resources.”
Several project elements for Lake Belle View include:
- Creating a new pedestrian path connecting to Community Park
- Dredging to deepen the lake
- Using dredged materials to enhance and expand existing island habitat
- Establishing a warm water fishery
- Incorporating a canoe/kayak loop around the lake – the only one in Dane County.
This project has the potential to serve as a model for other millponds and rivers in Wisconsin and the rest of the United States. Construction is planned for late summer 2010, as soon as permits are obtained and funding is in place. Construction will likely be completed in late 2011 or early 2012.
You may contribute here to
The Lake Belle View Restoration. For more information, contact
Bob Sorge, Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, at (608) 232-1763.
Garden Philanthropy – Inch by Inch, Row by Row
The following is a thank you letter received at MCF that underscores the tremendous impact even a small amount of charitable giving can provide.
Dear Ms. Woit,
I received the check of $150 from MCF for the Allied Wellness Center’s container garden project through the [Community Action Coalition] New Garden Program. Thank you for this kind and generous gift. We are underway with our project of having four container vegetable garden sites in the neighborhood to encourage an interest and involvement by Allied residents in urban gardening. [We also] …plan to distribute 5 gallon bucket containers for 50 apartments in the neighborhood where the children will be involved in decorating the buckets, planting and caring for them. My original intention was to have vegetables but gave people a choice of what they wanted to plant in their buckets and almost universally they chose flowers. Which undergirds the importance of beautification to a community! This, too, will hopefully build an interest in gardening so that if we are successful we can develop actual community gardens. The containers are a way to start small and see if the residents are able to follow through on the care of the plants. We have had past problems with vandalism to vegetables planted and so are hopeful that by making this widespread through-out the neighborhood and by including the kids, we will be bringing about a new respect for green and growing things.
Thank you for your support of our project,
Susan Corrado, RN, MSN
Community Parish Nurse
Allied Drive, Madison, WI
If you wish to support the Community Action Coalition's New Gardens fund, click
here.
Not So Wild Philanthropy
What includes four artists, 1,000 hours, 334 spots and 27,000 pieces of glass? Long Tall Sally, the Giraffe Mosaic Sculpture created by Tom Linfield, Madison Community Foundation Vice President of Grantmaking, and his fellow Arts Tribe members Aimee Reid Rice, Dana Slowiak and Gary N-Ski. Sally is part of the Zoobilee Fundraiser, sponsored by Friends of University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics, Inc. and Friends of the Zoo.
“It’s exciting for artists to be part of a major public art event,” said Tom Linfield. “After six months in a basement working on Sally, the four of us were thrilled to see people interacting with her at the Overture Center. She was a true labor of love and I can’t wait to see all thirty of the Zoobilee animals “roaming” around the Zoo this summer.”
Over eight feet tall, ”Long Tall Sally” started out as a fiberglass mold that was covered with small pieces of glass and grout over a six month period, and was completed in time to adorn the Overture Center Rotunda Lobby during the month-long run of “The Lion King.”
Sally will be on display at Henry Vilas Park Zoo June 19 through September 26 along with 30 different zoo animal sculptures, each done by a different local artist. The art animals will be sold at a live and silent auction event on October 22 at Marriott West. Proceeds from the event will be split evenly to benefit American Family Children’s Hospital and Henry Vilas Zoological Society.
Click here for more information on
Zoobilee.
The Henry Vilas Zoological Endowment Fund at Madison Community Foundation helps support the zoo forever. You can contribute
here.
Veggies on the Square
Community GroundWorks (formerly known as Troy Gardens) and its cadre of offshoot organizations have received Madison Community Foundation support in the past for innovative and well-administered community-enhancing projects. Madison FarmWorks, one of those offshoots, recently presented the newest innovation by converting the South Hamilton Street corner of the Capitol Square into a public vegetable garden meant to inspire and educate people to grow their own vegetables.
“Using the Capitol Square gardens to demonstrate how easy it is to grow vegetables is a brilliant idea,’ said Kathleen Woit, Madison Community Foundation President. “The number of community gardens is exploding and we see food pantry gardens springing up all over Dane County.”
The purpose of the garden is to demonstrate what kinds of vegetables can be grown in home gardens. Tomatoes, broccoli, kale, cabbage, cucumbers, lettuce, potatoes, peppers, and even herbs including basil and parsley were planted by Madison FarmWorks, a project of Community GroundWorks. The plants - costing less than $100 - were paid for by Madison FarmWorks, and will remain all summer and will be maintained primarily by Madison FarmWorks employees.
“Many people stop by and are excited by how easy these vegetables are to grow,” said Megan Cain, Project Manager, who tends the plot weekly. “These varieties have been tested for years at the Troy Community Farm. My vision is that everyone would have a garden in their back yard.”
Kids may be so tempted by the glossy cherry tomatoes that they pop one in their mouth, but the intent is that people leave the food on the plants so all may see and learn. Madison FarmWorks will be harvesting the food and donating it to Goodman Food Pantry.
For more information on
Community GroundWorks, contact Megan Cain, Program Manager, at
megan@troygardens.org.