When was the last time you changed someone’s life?
You might already make a difference by volunteering your time, which is crucial to help programs and people around mid-Michigan.
What about helping in a different way — a way that would help forever?
At the Capital Region Community Foundation, we’ve been helping donors change the lives of thousands of people in our community for 25 years. Mid-Michigan residents, nonprofits and businesses have entrusted the Community Foundation to make their charitable giving as effective and meaningful as possible. We listen to people’s passions and recommend the best way to support causes they care about.
As we near the end of 2012 and you think about your final charitable gifts of the year, we hope you will consider supporting your community through a gift to the Capital Region Community Foundation.
Twenty mid-Michigan nonprofits are hoping to start the year off with a “bang” by winning the University Club of MSU’s second annual Big Bang-quet Community Charity Challenge. Beginning Feb. 1, the 20 organizations will be asking the public for their votes to help them win a $10,000, $5,000 or $2,500 credit toward a fundraising event held at the University Club of MSU. The program is being conducted by the University Club and is sponsored by the MSU Federal Credit Union and the Capital Region Community Foundation.
A donor-advised fund offers the opportunity to create a low-cost, flexible vehicle for charitable giving as an alternative to direct giving or creating a private foundation. Donors enjoy administrative convenience, cost savings and tax advantages by conducting their grantmaking through the fund.
Paul Marisch and Warren Smith had a happy predicament.
Now retired from careers with the State of Michigan, they have spent their 33 years together saving and building assets. “Now we get to spend the next 40 years trying to get rid of it,” Marisch joked.
They established the Smith-Marisch Music Education Scholarship Fund at the Capital Region Community Foundation to provide college scholarships for male students graduating from local high schools pursuing a career in vocal music education or professional vocal music performance.
Tucked into an unassuming building on South Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in south Lansing, the R.J. Scheffel Memorial Toy Project looks like the ultimate retirees’ hangout.
The workshop is packed with piles of wood, machines to shape it and people who are done punching a time clock. Around the edges of the room are boxes and tables piled with finished products — cars, crayon holders, trains, dinosaurs, doll cribs — awaiting delivery to happy hands.
When was the last time you changed someone’s life?
You might already make a difference by volunteering your time, which is crucial to help programs and people around mid-Michigan.
What about helping in a different way — a way that would help forever?
At the Capital Region Community Foundation, we’ve been helping donors change the lives of thousands of people in our community for 25 years. Mid-Michigan residents, nonprofits and businesses have entrusted the Community Foundation to make their charitable giving as effective and meaningful as possible. We listen to people’s passions and recommend the best way to support causes they care about.
This is an exciting time at the Capital Region Community Foundation! As you may have heard, Brad Patterson left us in June to follow an exciting opportunity. Brad’s transition allowed CRCF the opportunity to take a step back and ask, “How can we better serve our community and donors?” The answer to this question has led to some changes.
In 1993, East Lansing native and tennis pro Todd Martin returned home for a winter visit. He was just a couple of years into his professional tennis career — not yet at the No. 4 spot in the world singles rankings — but he was already thinking about how he could repay his community.
“He talked with his coach Rick Ferman and his dad, Dale, about what it meant to give back to a community that had given to him so richly,” said Nancy Danhof. “So they formed the Todd Martin Development Fund.”
The Capital Region Community Foundation has chosen Big Brothers Big Sisters Michigan Capital Region as the recipient of its $75,000 impact grant for 2012.
BBBSMCR will use the grant for its newly created Tri-County Quality Mentoring Demonstration Project. It will lead a collaboration with the Yes Center in Eaton County, The Turning Point of Lansing and MSU Extension 4-H in Clinton County to match at least 70 new children with one-on-one mentors who will change their lives for the better, forever. BBBSMCR targets youth who are most at risk and prioritizes those from low-income, single-parent households.
Those words, spoken by Richard “Dick” Letts, became the title of a documentary about the man affectionately known as “Mr. Lansing.” They were the words he lived his life by. And they are his legacy and his call to action.
The Lansing man, community activist and city employee built his life around that statement. Before his death in 1997 at 75, he served more than 60 city organizations, spent 27 years as Lansing’s human relations director and opened doors for countless people who needed someone to believe in them.
The State of Michigan Community Foundation Tax Credit was abolished by Gov. Rick Snyder at the end of December 2011. Originally signed into law Dec. 29, 1988, the Michigan Community Foundation Tax Credit was designed to encourage individuals and businesses to build the permanent endowments of community foundations across the state. This tax credit was intended to bring additional dollars to communities by generating new donors and encouraging more permanent endowment support rather than tempting donors to shift their dollars from other organizations.
The Consumers Energy Foundation announced it is awarding $1.25 million in grants to 10 community projects as part of the utility’s 125th anniversary celebration.
The Michigan Nonprofit Association was awarded a $125,000 grant on behalf of the Nonprofit Center at the Armory.
After many months of planning and renovating, several Lansing-based nonprofits will be calling the former Marshall Street Armory home this fall.
The historic building at 330 Marshall St. in Lansing is set to open in November 2011. The Nonprofit Center at the Armory will house the offices of the Michigan Nonprofit Association, Capital Region Community Foundation, Capital Area United Way, Michigan Association of United Ways, the Food Bank Council of Michigan and other nonprofits.
The organizations based in the Armory represent a diverse collection of Mid-Michigan’s nonprofit leaders and funders, and the shared space encourages collaboration in every sense of the word.
A grant from the Capital Region Community Foundation helped the Stoneleigh Hospice Residence add a convenience suggested by the adult son of a Hospice patient: Free Wi-Fi. The woman’s son was dedicated to staying by his mother’s side in the residence; however, the demands of his job required him to work remotely. Without Wi-Fi at Stoneleigh, he had to leave every time he needed Internet access.
So in 2009, the Community Foundation granted $1,533 to the Stoneleigh Hospice Residence to enable the installation of a free wireless network for everyone to use. Lars Egede-Nissen, Hospice of Lansing’s executive director, said it was a welcome addition for the families and patients.
A visit to the Southside Community Kitchen delivers a combination of expected and unexpected finds.
Expected: Friendly volunteers working to prepare lunch for an indeterminate number of guests at the Christ United Methodist Church on Jolly Road in Lansing. Rows of pie slices lining the kitchen counter, waiting to become dessert.
Unexpected: Round tables of eight set with paper place mats, plastic ware wrapped in paper napkins and secured with a dark green wrapper. A grand piano in the back corner of the room, being played as lovely background music. Volunteers acting as servers for the guests.
In its third year awarding Impact Grants, the Capital Region Community Foundation has chosen the Allen Neighborhood Center, REACH Studio Art Center and the Greater Lansing Food Bank to receive grants totaling $189,280.
Signed into law in August 2006, the Pension Protection Act of 2006 (PPA) made substantial changes to federal tax law governing charitable organizations, especially with regard to donor advised funds and scholarship funds. The Capital Region Community Foundation (CRCF) has identified certain issues raised by the PPA and has prepared the following questions and answers in an effort to inform donor advisors of the implication of these Federal legal requirements. We encourage you to contact us with any additional questions you may have about your donor advised fund.
Kevin's family established the Kevin A. Kelly Action Fund to help people in need and provide opportunities for people to be lifted up from their troubles, their challenges and their pain.
As executive director of the Michigan State Medical Society, Kevin saw the big picture, advocating for access to health care and working to envision the future of medicine.
Getting schoolkids excited about classical music might seem like a tough job. But the Lansing Symphony Orchestra’s music director Timothy Muffitt welcomes the challenge.
Through a $3,286 grant from the Capital Region Community Foundation in 2009, Muffitt and the orchestra bring classical music to thousands of kids each spring — for free.
After many years of dreaming, researching and planning, Ellen McKay and her late husband, Dale, established the Covenant Fund for Faith and Families in 1999, fulfilling their desire to create a family legacy of care and concern for others. They chose the Capital Region Community Foundation rather than setting up a private foundation because it allowed them to concentrate on their dream, rather than on administrative tasks.
Pilots often have great perspective on life, both literally and figuratively.
From 10,000 feet above, they see things those of us on the ground often don’t or can’t see. Instead of seeing the front of a building, they see the building in its entirety and the grounds — and community — surrounding it.
Views like these can shape a perspective on life, too. That seemed to be the case for Gerald and Dorothy Francis, a Grand Ledge couple who were pilots.
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