Eugene Southtowne Rotary Foundation Minutes of Board of Directors Meeting

November 10, 2021

Members Present: Susie Andrist,Gary Brown, Steve Hutchinson, Christie McDonald, Sam Miller, Michael Raz, Paul Reiss, Ted Stevens, Kyle Williams (briefly)
Guests: Kathi Hoffer, Randy Bernstein

1. Call to Order: The Zoom meeting was called to order at 4:02 PM by President Steve.

2. Consideration of Minutes from Previous Foundation Meeting: A motion to accept the minutes as emailed was made and approved.

3. Treasurer’s Report: Ted reported the following:

  • The fall fundraising efforts are off to a good start.
  • We got $2000 back from the U of O because one of the scholarship recipients did not enroll. Steve reminded the board the scholarship monies are sent to the institutions not the students and that a letter accompanies the check telling the institution what to do if the student doesn’t enroll.
  • Two checks were written, one to the club (the breakdown of which was reported in the last minutes); the other to Falling Sky Brewery, in the amount of $933, for the expenses related to Trivia Night.
  • The earnings from the Community Service Endowment, $8097, just about covered the amount recently turned over to the club.
  • The balances for restricted-use funds (e.g. food boxes) that are shown in the report are for the next RY.

Randy asked what would happen to the $2,000 that was returned by the UO. Ted explained that he has added it to the scholarship fund for next year, which currently amounts to $3250. He acknowledged that the board has committed to providing $19,000 for next year’s scholarships; $15,822 is available for spring scholarships.

Steve commented that he’d very much like to see Shaw funds and McChesney funds awarded in the next scholarship cycle.

4. Report on Chambers Family Foundation Grant: The grant has been completed, and Susie is preparing a final report, which should be delivered to Chambers in the next week. The report will appear in the Spinoff by way of informing club members of the existence of the grant as well as the students who the grant benefitted.

5. Report on the Shaw fund: It is believed that there have been 3 donations so far (2 online, 1 received by Ted) in response to the recent solicitation. Randy expressed concern that there were numerous requests for donations in this week’s Spinoff.

6. Report from the Scholarship Committee: Gary reported that the Scholarship Committee met via Zoom and agreed to review the format and content of the application forms as well as the criteria for the awards and the evaluation sheet, especially considering the challenges that Covid presented for extra-curricular activities and community service.

Gary expressed that the committee would like to expand the program to Creswell High School, which does not have a Rotary partner. In response to this request, Steve will check with Cottage Grove RC about whether they would ‘adopt’ Creswell HS. He will report back to the board about the results of that communication. Steve expressed great appreciation for the work that Kyle has done in leading the Scholarship Committee.

7. Report on creating online presence for the foundation: Mike and Deanna have not been able to connect about updates.

Steve talked about Deanna’s suggestion to do an online campaign that was directed at donors giving X dollars to provide a specific thing for one of our programs, e.g. a food box. Randy expressed that he hopes an online presence will also include appeals for scholarship donations.

He added that if the fall fundraising campaign doesn’t meet its goal by January, there might be a direct- mail campaign to raise additional funds.

8. Fundraising: The foundation will seek business sponsorships for scholarships. Christie is awaiting a list from Deanna of past donors to use in creating a donor list, which she feels should be broken into sections based on donor capacity. Sam suggested that we add an additional ‘tier’ to our fundraising pyramid, one that would be comprised of “big” donors, who would be invited to a face-to-face meeting to learn more about our work. Mike fully agreed with Sam and suggested gathering a group of Southtowne business members to brainstorm a list of potential donors. Sam and Susie agreed to develop a timeline and a training plan for these endeavors. Randy suggested we also approach alumni of SEHS and Churchill.

9. Upcoming board elections: Christie reported that Joelle has agreed to ‘run for’ one of the positions. Susie agreed to contact Andrea about the other position.

10. Next meeting: December 8 at 4:00 PM via Zoom

11. Meeting adjourned at 4:55 PM.

Respectfully Submitted,
Susie Andrist, Secretary

 

President: Steve Hutchinson
VP: Christie McDonald
Secretary: Susie Andrist
Treasurer: Ted Stevens
Directors: Gary Brown, Sam Miller, Mike Raz, Paul Riess, Kyle Williams
Scholarship Committee: Gary Brown, Co-C, Nancy Hughes, Co-C, Randy Bernstein, Lonny King, Carrie Killen, Nancy Meyer, Walt Meyer, Gerry Reicher