GRAYS HARBOR COMMUNITY FOUNDATION

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Polson Museum

UNRESTRICTED FUNDS

 

All unrestricted gifts support our foundation's core mission:  to provide permanent and broad support to the communities of Grays Harbor 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 Grays Harbor County. 

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 grants program.  While recommendations are made by our grants committee, all final decisions are made by our board of directors.

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 communities of Grays Harbor over the long-term is to plan ahead for change.  No one knows what the needs of local communities 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 Grays Harbor 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 Fund for Grays Harbor. 

 

 

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Grays Harbor Community Foundation is a tax-exempt public charity dedicated to serving the broad needs of Grays Harbor County in Washington State.  We are a member of the Council on Foundations; we have committed ourselves to the National Standards for U.S. community foundations; we are audited annually; and we consider ourselves accountable to the public upon whom we depend for support.

We thank Darrell Westmoreland, Kevin Hong, Ellen Pickell, and the Polson Museum for providing the photographs used in this website.  We'd like to showcase the work of more local photographers and artists on this website and in our publications.  Please contact us if you'd like to help. 

Mail:        707 J Street  |  P.O. Box 615  |  Hoquiam, WA  98550
Email:      info@gh-cf.org
Phone:     360.532.1600
Fax:         360.532.8111
Last modified: 08/21/06