UNRESTRICTED FUNDS
All unrestricted gifts support our foundation's core mission: to provide permanent and broad support to the Mead Community as a whole.
By "unrestricted," we mean that we don't want to have to say "no" to dozens of charities with important missions because, from the outset, we simply said "yes" only to one or a few.
From the outset, we want to be able to say "yes" potentially to any group doing good work to improve the Mead Community.
Furthermore, we recognize that the "best" projects and programs today may not be the same in two or three years, let alone two or three decades.
We hope more and more donors will begin to share this vision and will choose to support our core mission. We want to build from the generosity of many donors a community endowment with the flexibility to adapt to changing local needs.
Grants from unrestricted funds are awarded in accordance with the goals and guidelines of our community foundation. All final decisions are made by our board of trustees
PERMANENT AND FLEXIBLE GIVING
While the somewhat bland adjective "unrestricted" may not suggest it, an unrestricted gift is one of the smartest ways to give back to local communities.
Because it's permanent, an unrestricted gift will help give long-term stability to local communities.
Because it's flexible, an unrestricted gift will always be able to support the most urgent local needs and most promising local opportunities, even as those needs and opportunities change over time.
Donors interested in making an unrestricted gift share our foundation's core vision: the best way to support the Mead area community over the long-term is to plan ahead for change. No one knows what the needs of our local community will be in 20, 50 or 100 years. Understandably, the more we restrict the use of our gifts, the less likely will our gifts be useful for addressing the most urgent problems facing our communities in the decades to come.
An unrestricted community endowment will enable future local leaders to decide how local resources should be used to solve local problems. We at the Mead Area Community Foundation believe that our job, in this generation, is not to make those decisions for our children and grandchildren. Our job is to prepare our children and grandchildren for their common future with full awareness of the inevitability of change. Above all, we must give the next generation the tools to succeed on their own.
This long-term view is the essence of what it means to give unrestricted gifts through a local community foundation. If you wish to support our efforts, please consider making a contribution of any size to The Mead Area Community Foundation.
To learn more about Unrestricted Funds and their possibilities, please contact us.