Chad Peterson,
Chair
Kevin Dvorak,
President
2009 Chair and President's Report
Values and the North Dakota Community Foundation
One important way that you decide with whom you should have a relationship is by evaluating the other person’s values to ascertain whether they line up with your own. We feel the same should be done when evaluating whether you will support or partner with a charitable organization. Does the organization not only state its values, but also live by them? As you page through this report you will see, scattered among the pages of numbers and names, statements of the values that we, the board and staff of the North Dakota Community Foundation, hold dear.
In the pages that follow, you will find descriptions of the new funds that were established in 2009. Please read those descriptions carefully. Do the charitable impulses expressed in these new funds seek to accomplish things similar to your own charitable dreams and desires?
Look at the list of grantees and imagine the projects that were completed, students who took another step forward in their education, and the people assisted by those dollars. Are those the type of things that you seek to do with your own giving?
In our Community Connections article we highlight just a small sample of the innovative grantmaking practices of the local community fund advisory committees. Are those highlighted grants the kind of thing that you like to see done with your charitable dollars?
As you look at the long lists of grantees, endowment balances, and donors, please read between the lines and insert the appropriate value with the actual activity of the NDCF.
If you take the time to read this report as we suggest, we trust that you will agree that the North Dakota Community Foundation not only states its values, but also lives them. Our values align with our Mission Statement which reads, “The mission of the North Dakota Community Foundation is to improve the quality of life for North Dakota’s citizens by promoting philanthropy and charitable giving.”