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1.1.2008
We're Taking Customer Service to the Next Level
Beginning in February: All scholarship applications will be available online through our website, www.mtcf.org. We will advertise the scholarships on our website and notify all Montana high school principals and financial aid offices of scholarship funds we are managing. Applicants will be required to complete the scholarship application form and e-mail it back to us by March 15. Supplemental documentation (transcripts, letters of recommendation, personal statements) can either be scanned and e-mailed or mailed. We will make an initial screening for quantitative compliance (GPA, supplemental documentation, etc), then forward them on to the scholarship fund representative for review by the selection committee. When the committee has scored its applicants, the fund representative will return the scoring sheets to us electronically for final selection and completion of the process. Young people are now so comfortable with technology and the Internet that we believe we will get more and better responses through an online application system than through a paper application process. For you, it means no more bulging packets of paper in your mailbox. Won’t that be great?
Coming this summer: Donors will be able to access their fund statements online. Rather than waiting for biannual statements to arrive in the mail, donors can visit our website for up-to-date information on their fund’s value, distributable earnings, etc. Eventually, you will also be able look at distribution history and see the names of donors who have made contributions to your fund.
And coming this fall: Recommendation forms for Donor Advised funds. Donors can specify the level of involvement they wish, even reviewing grant applications and making recommendations to us if they choose.All of this information will be available on a secure server located right here in Helena so that if glitches occur, we can remedy them immediately. Users will have their own ID and password for accessing information about their funds.
We will keep you informed as we progress with our work and let you know what is available online when. At this point, it is a work in progress (one that started months ago). We are very excited about its potential.
11.20.2007
Montana Community Foundation Announces New Endowment to Fight Poverty
TThe Montana Community Foundation received authority from the Northwest Area Foundation (NWAF) in November to create a $1 million permanent endowment to fight poverty in Montana. Funding for the new endowment came from an NWAF Donor Advised fund that has been managed by the Foundation since 2000. Earnings on the new endowment will target early childhood education and public policy changes aimed at lifting women from poverty. Granting decisions will be made by the Montana Community Foundation.
“The primary role of the Montana Community Foundation is to create permanent wealth that will enable Montanans to address these and other community issues in perpetuity,” said Foundation President Linda Reed. “We are thrilled to receive this vote of confidence from a major philanthropic organization that shares our vision of building the capacity of individuals to live economically self-reliant lives.”
In requesting that a portion of the Donor Advised fund be used to create a permanent endowment, Reed said she is interested in early childhood education, specifically literacy, based on a growing body of evidence that links early education to economic vitality. According to a 2005 report issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, “investing in the education of children in their earliest years makes sense as an economic development strategy precisely because the returns are large, reliable and reaped by both the individuals involved and the general public.”
“The correlation between early childhood literacy and juvenile and early adult crime is well established,” Reed said. “Indeed, some states can predict incarceration rates based on the literacy level of fourth graders.”
The Foundation has already tested this theory with success in recent granting to two Head Start literacy programs that involve parents as well as students and teachers. Through one of its existing component endowment funds, the Women’s Foundation of Montana, the Foundation is evaluating public policy changes that would help women become economically self-sufficient. The earnings of Montana women are the lowest in the nation, according to Reed, and more than a third of Montana’s single mothers live in poverty.
To change the underlying cause of these statistics, the Women’s Foundation believes public policies need to be changed regarding pay equity, regulation of payday lenders and access to quality and affordable education, child care and health care. This new endowment will provide additional resources to support needed public policy changes to empower the lives of Montana women. |
