Gratitude for Sue Anderson’s Expertise, Guidance & Service
Gratitude for Sue Anderson’s Expertise, Guidance & Service
Sue Anderson, CPA and Missoula Community Foundation bookkeeper, is leaving the foundation after seven critical years of partnership.
Sue’s professional expertise and thoughtful, behind the scenes guidance was pivotal to the foundation’s success – as it is for the many organizations in our community that are fortunate to work with her.
Sue combines an amazing ability to understand programmatic work and financials. She took the time to understand our day-to-day work, organized it and helped us understand and see things that were not always obvious. She did this all calmly and without judgment. She allowed us, encouraged us, to take the risks necessary for growth, but also held our feet to the fire when needed.
In 2016 the foundation revenue was budgeted at $131,000 and this year, at the close of Sue’s tenure, we approved a budget with $1.7 million in projected revenue. Marcy Allen, Executive Director of Msla CF noted, “We needed Sue’s accounting savvy to achieve this complex growth and our partnership with her really got us where we are today. And the work that Sue does in the community, the time and expertise she offers to so many organizations, is pretty staggering. I am extraordinarily grateful to her.”
Sue has given the foundation countless hours of donated time and made our recent transition to fund management software possible. She guided us in making hard decisions, seeded our unrestricted endowment, and continues to be a champion, quietly and steadfastly, of our work.
Sue, we are so grateful for your work and dedication to helping us build this dream. Thank you!
North Missoula Community Development Corporation Receives $12,000 Capacity Building Grant
The Missoula Community Foundation awarded a $12,000 Capacity Building Grant to the North Missoula Community Development Corporation (NMCDC) to support their strategic goals and expand their community impact.
Founded in 1996, the NMCDC advocates for policy that supports equity among neighborhoods and builds and stewards permanently affordable homeownership opportunities using the community land trust model. In 2022 they partnered with NeighborWorks Montana to build a limited equity housing cooperative model for Montana – a new tool that transitions natural occurring affordable housing to long-term affordable housing. In this model, neighbors in multi-family buildings form a cooperative and purchase their buildings together, and the NMCDC brings the land underneath into trust, held on behalf of the community and preserving the affordable homes in perpetuity.
The NMCDC completed a strategic planning process in 2023 and subsequently established a new three-year plan. They aim to serve 100 new homeowners or shareholders with their homeownership models, advocate for equitable development policy, and support healthy and stable neighborhoods by connecting and empowering residents.
Branding is one of the key capacity building strategies they will employ to realize their long-term goals. A strong brand that is visible, well-known, and reflective of their new service area will recognize and highlight NMCDC’s housing innovation, responsiveness to community needs, and collaborative approach. The $12,000 grant from the Missoula Community Foundation will support the rebranding portion of NMCDC’s capacity building plan.
The Missoula Community Foundation envisions a thriving, unique and engaged community – and strengthening nonprofits is an important part of their mission. Amid growing community needs, resilient nonprofits are crucial, and the foundation recognizes that organizations need strong leadership, financial management, technology, and communication skills to drive positive change in the community.
More capacity building initiatives are underway at the Missoula Community Foundation. If you would like to learn more about how you can support this work, please reach out – [email protected].
Brian Weiss Memorial Fund Supports Families First Programs for Missoula Teens
Brian Weiss Memorial Fund Supports Families First Programs for Missoula Teens
The Brian Weiss Memorial Fund made its first gift to the community this fall -- a $5,500 donation to Families First Learning Lab for their MT Happiness Project, Dream Bigger, and Inner Roads programs.
When Brian Weiss took his own life in 2001, he was just twenty-one years old and struggling with low self esteem, mental health issues and addiction. His brother Kevin, wanting to turn this tragedy into a force for positive change, established the Brian Weiss Memorial Fund with the Missoula Community Foundation in 2021. The fund aims to provide effective, innovative solutions that focus on helping teens access counseling and education to enrich their feelings of self-worth and chances of success in the world.
The Weiss family is honoring Brian’s memory by lifting up organizations that work to remove the financial barriers and social stigmas that often prevent teens from seeking help. The Families First teen programs, Dream Bigger, MT Happiness Project and Inner Roads do just this – and Kevin chose them because, “they each have a unique approach to supporting and serving teens in Missoula, helping them discover their own power, worth and potential,”
This gift is just the first disbursement of the fund, which Kevin hopes will, “Continue to grow and expand our ability to positively impact our next generation of Missoulians as they make their way through what can be the most impactful years of their lives.”
Donations to the Brian Weiss Memorial Fund can be made here and will support suicide prevention and mental health programs for Missoula teens going forward.
Women’s Giving Circle of Missoula County Awards $10,000 to Blue Mountain Clinic
Blue Mountain Clinic, a long serving Missoula nonprofit that provides affordable women’s health care, is the recipient of the Women’s Giving Circle of Missoula County’s annual $10,000 grant. The funding will support their internal Access Fund, which helps cover the costs of abortion, contraception, and gender-affirming care for individuals in need. In 2022, the Access Fund provided an average of $219 per person towards the cost of care and the WGC grant will help approximately 45 individuals access the essential health care they need.
The Women’s Giving Circle is a giving collective that has granted out over $60,000 since 2018. Each year, members of the Circle decide, learn, and give together – to promote philanthropy in Missoula and support a cause they care about.
During this year's giving cycle, 96 women and non-binary members:
- Pooled their annual membership funds.
- Voted to adopt a grant focus of Women’s Issues for 2023.
- Gathered at a summer event to celebrate the new grant cycle and hear from Indigenous Made Missoula, the recipient of their 2022 grant.
- Hosted an educational panel at Missoula Public Library on Women’s Issues.
- Reviewed 13 applications for funding.
- Selected 3 grant finalists.
- Hosted a presentation event for members to learn more about the finalists
- Filmed the event so the whole membership could view the presentations.
- Voted on the grant award winner.
- Granted out $10,000 to Blue Mountain Clinic and gifted $1,000 to the other two finalists, The International Rescue Committee in Missoula and YWCA Missoula.
L to R: Sarah Howerton; Development Manager, The International Rescue Committee in Missoula, receives a WGC finalist gift from Ann Wiltse; Program Coordinator, Msla CF
The Women’s Giving Circle completes this process each year and welcomes new members to join for the 2024 grant cycle. Visit the WGC website to learn more.
No Joke Theater Awarded Legacy of Living Art (LoLA) Grant
No Joke Theater, a transformational theater program for individuals in pre-release programs or under court-ordered supervision, as well as members of the recovery community, has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Legacy of Living Art Fund (LoLA) held at the Missoula Community Foundation.
No Joke Theater aims to assist incarcerated and court supervised populations in their recovery and transition to society by engaging them in bold, original, and devised theater productions about current social issues such as substance abuse, addiction, racism, mental illness, family dysfunction and mass incarceration.
These programs offer participants a creative and productive way to communicate some of the issues surrounding addiction and its' consequences. Working with professional and student teaching artists enables them to form bonds with community members that they would normally not encounter. And the process of creating and performing teaches communication skills such as speaking in public, writing in a theatrical format and memorization. Participants also learn patience, listening skills and how to manage chaos under pressure. The final No Joke Theater performance builds confidence and reduces the shame that quietly companions addiction.
The LoLA Fund has awarded over $40,000 in grants since 2020 – supporting programs that use the arts to support healing and encouraging individual artists and organizations to bring their unique talents and visions for healing through the arts to Missoula in new ways.
LoLA funding will support a No Joke Theater production at the University of Montana’s Masquer Theater in the spring or early summer of 2024.