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Thoughts on 2023 & Plans for 2024

We’re approaching the end of 2023 and it’s time to look back on everything the Fayette Community Foundation (and the community) accomplished. I’m carrying on the Foundation’s tradition of reflecting on the past year and setting goals for January and beyond. It helps me align with our organization’s priorities and see what kind of progress we’re making as we serve the community and our donors.

Here’s what we accomplished in 2023:

–        We expanded our team: Becky Turney joined us in January and Sheila Groce joined us in November. Becky was hired as our Office Manager but quickly transitioned into our Program Director. Sheila serves as our Office and Communications Coordinator. Both were welcomed additions and have been helping us carry out our mission to inspire a spirit of philanthropy and leadership in Fayette County to enhance the quality of life.

–        We hosted our third annual Candy Cans and Cocoa event. We’re working on connecting better with the community and this is a great way to establish a tradition and share warm holiday greetings with the people who join us for a cup of hot cocoa.

–        We introduced a new scholarship application software and transitioned to a new grant management software. This allows us to make the process easier for applicants and helps us become more efficient in processing applications.

–        We also grew our Board of Directors by bringing in three new members in January: Clayton Judd, Billie Kester, and Matt Watkins. We’re grateful for their leadership.

I am incredibly appreciative of our staff and board members for their hard work and vision this year. Keeping the Foundation thriving is truly a team effort. We are also grateful to the community for continuing to show up for us and themselves to enhance the quality of life through impactful grantmaking, strategic endowment building, and community leadership.

Goals for 2024:

The plan is to do even better for next year. We are working on a few projects to enhance our communication, improve our efficiency, and increase our community support. This includes:

–        Enhancing our support for donors by launching a new fund management and donation platform. This would allow us to better measure and maximize donors’ impact and more efficiently honor and fulfill their philanthropic visions.

–        Increase our support for our local nonprofit organizations. We’ll be present in the community, make connections, and help strengthen nonprofits to better respond to community needs with financial support and capacity-building programs by providing grants from our unrestricted and field of interest endowments, as well as from donor-advised funds.

–        Revamping our scholarship policy and application process in order to make it accessible to more students. This will ensure more Fayette County students have the potential to have their lives transformed by access to higher education.

–        Provide more impact updates to our donors throughout the year so that they can see the work they’re supporting as it happens. Being able to see what your gift has done to improve lives in our community is a powerful moment and we want as many donors as possible to be able to experience it.

This is just a small start to our 2024 To Do list for Fayette County and I hope that we continue to serve the community well. If you have any questions or suggestions, give us a call at (765) 827-9966 or email info@givetofcf.com.

I can speak for the entire organization when I share our very best wishes for a Happy New Year to everyone in Fayette County!

–        Abigail Roszell, Executive Director, Fayette Community Foundation