Fund Contact Portal
Board Portal
Give Online

A Message From Dawn

21 Jul

Posted at 16:53h in A Message From Dawn, Grant County Community Corner, Home Featured, News, What's Happening
0 Likes

THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION AWARDS A PROACTIVE GRANT TO THE MARION POLICE DEPARTMENT FOR PROTECTIVE BODY ARMOR The Community Foundation of Grant County, Indiana, Inc. will award a proactive grant for $13,600 tonight at Marion’s Concert in the Park event to the Marion Police Department for the purchase of protective body armor (rifle plates and carriers) for their 68 police officers. Executive Director Dawn Brown stated, “After a few conversations with Chief Haley and Deputy Chief Kenworthy, I learned of MPD’s need to upgrade their current body armor.  Essentially, soft body armor vests are excellent for fragmentation and pistol protection but will not stop rifle bullets; therefore there was a pressing need to provide iron rifle plates and the carriers or vests that have the necessary pockets for such plates.  Police work is growing increasingly dangerous in times such as this.  Therefore, as a demonstration of confidence and support in our local law enforcement agencies, the Community Foundation utilized the entire balance of the Law Enforcement Safety Fund as well as an additional grant from the Irving Family Fund to fulfil the current need of the Marion Police Department.” Thankfully, in 1993, donor Bill Jackson established the Law Enforcement Safety Fund for the sole purpose...

12 Jul

Posted at 16:31h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured, News
0 Likes

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.  We’ve all heard this. We’ve all read this.  Though, for the life of me, I do not know why we all read the back of the shampoo bottle.  Are we that bored while taking a shower?  I guess it’s our desire to quench our thirst for knowledge.  Like when one of my sons asked as a child if shampoo as a compound word.  Or maybe it just stems from growing up reading cereal boxes—back in the good ole days when you didn’t need to take out a short-term loan to buy cereal.  Nonetheless, you can imagine my surprise when I recently read an article that undermined a lifelong beauty ritual of mine and advocated to condition your hair before the lather, rinse, repeat loop.  BEFORE!  I think even Elle Woods would object to such blasphemy since she taught us all that “The rules of hair care are simple and finite. Any Cosmo girl would have known.”  Alas, I did not.  But, I do read more Seth Godin than Cosmo these days, so I’ll blame Seth.  (Bald may be beautiful, but I think we can all agree that it doesn’t make you a haircare expert.)  This is an...

20 Jun

Posted at 03:15h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured, News
0 Likes

Historians know the significance of the Monroe Doctrine well. Passed in 1823 by the fifth President of the United States and the doctrine’s namesake, President James Monroe, this judgment was issued at a time when most Latin American colonies had declared themselves independent. The goal of the Monroe Doctrine was to maintain that independence—to ensure the free American continents would never be subjected to colonization of the European powers again. The boldness of such a declaration at that time put the USA on the map as a definitive world superpower. While I’m no expert on politics, we certainly have spent a great deal of time this past year ‘studying’ superheroes and their superpowers. Around here superheroes are ordinary people who happen to do extraordinary things. Think Clark Kent. Think Superman. Grant County has so many leaders, donors, and volunteers who humbly fall into the superhero category—you know them, you love them, you may even be one of them! What you may not know is that Indiana community foundations have a superhero like that, too. Although you’d never find it in any history books, she’s made much ado about philanthropy with her very own Monroe Doctrine…the Helen Monroe Doctrine. Everyone in the...

16 May

Posted at 13:17h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured, News
0 Likes

Grant County gives generously; thank you.  Continue to do so; please.  We live in the 3rd most generous county in the state of Indiana.  I recall the pride I felt when this announcement was made just two short years ago.  Grant County—a county that gives abundantly, selflessly, and lovingly to help our neighbors in need.  Without a doubt, we’re still that same county today. At the Community Foundation of Grant County we witness this generosity every week.  We are blessed to be able to work daily with the most generous people and make grants to the most worthy organizations—all right here in our hometown. Without a doubt, this abundant generosity must continue. Grant County gives generously; thank you.  Continue to do so; please.  But, heed the following first. As a donor, you have rights.  It’s true.  In fact, these rights, adopted in 1993, have been written into what’s called The Donor Bill of Rights developed by the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and the Giving Institute: Leading Consultants to Non-Profits.  These Rights have been endorsed by numerous organizations, including the Community Foundation of Grant County and many other non-profits in our...

22 Apr

Posted at 10:17h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured, News
0 Likes

I feel pretty confident that Hoosiers appreciate spring more than any other season…and more than any other state in the union for that matter!  We have such long, frigid winters that we long for the first signs of spring which bring about feelings of pure, unadulterated joy.  We hear birds chirping, we see trees blossoming, we notice tractors plowing the fields, and we realize that B & K is finally open for the season—Ah, yes, spring has sprung! Spring!  It’s this new life, new hope, new beginning that we experience this time each year that makes me wonder whether (pun intended) to feel sorry for weathermen or not.  I mean honestly, they are wrong A LOT…maybe more than any other career.  What if doctors got it wrong as much as weathermen?  Yikes!  But, weather is fickle.  Even the best tools and education can show you one thing and then the wind blows, literally, and it’s a whole new ball game—or a cancelled ball game if we’re being honest.  But, then I saw a weatherman on then news this week saying, ‘You’re welcome!’ in regard to this beauteous maximus weather we’ve been experiencing as of late.  And, I thought….’REALLY!?  Seriously!?’  Actually...

15 Mar

Posted at 16:54h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured, News
0 Likes

    If you’re never around kids you need to change that.  Kids are insightful.  Kids are truthful.  Kids are downright funny.  My son and I were having a lazy Saturday conversation with my niece, Katie, who was telling us all about how she knows algebra.  Uh, she’s 8.  We asked how she could possibly know algebra as a 3rd grader and she said, “Easy, y = 25.”  Well, there you have it folks.  All of you who may have struggled with algebra in school just needed to know the super-secret formula y=25.  Upon further questioning, to better understood the logic of the 8-year-old mind, we discovered that (1) apparently you only solve for y and nothing else and (2) y is the 25th letter of the alphabet; thus, y=25.  After the explanation, the look she gave us was clearly face language for “Duh!”.   Flash forward a few weeks and I’m helping my 10-year-old niece, Kamryn, with math homework.  She’s exasperated.  She’s brilliant and even aced the iRead test last year, but doesn’t think math is her thing.  So, there is sighing and erasing and clock-watching.  After a brief 15 minutes of changing fractions to percentages and a celebratory fist-bump, we are done. ...

01 Mar

Posted at 08:37h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured, News
0 Likes

I got a wicked sinus infection last week that had me down for the count all weekend.  I only tell you this as a mild excuse for binge-watching the entire first season of Fuller House on Netflix on Saturday.  Uncle Joey with his ‘cut it out’ line, Uncle Jessie’s ‘have mercy’ mantra, and Stephanie’s ‘how rude’ refrain gave me the nostalgia feels. Maybe it was because the show aired before I had either a car payment or a mortgage, but times seemed simpler then.  The humor, innocent; the jokes, corny.  Times were simpler. As kids we would play outside all day long in the summertime…ALL DAY LONG.  The rule was that we had to be home when the street lights came on and even then we’d negotiate to play just a little bit longer.  I remember well coming home hot and sweaty, lathering up in a hot bath, putting on cool PJ’s, and filling a Dixie cup with precisely counted M&M’s as our snack while we watched the Donny and Marie variety show—she was a little bit country; he  was a little bit rock and roll.  We really knew how to squeeze every ounce of opportunity out of life before we started...

17 Feb

Posted at 08:58h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured
0 Likes

There’s nothing quite like working with Millennials that will make you feel older than discussing songs, bands, actors, or shows that they have never heard of in the entirety of their young lives. Sherri and I have taken it upon ourselves to educate our teammates on Def Leopard and their one-armed drummer, Rick Allen. Then this past weekend we got to explain that the star of a current hit movie is actually the daughter of Don Johnson…which they vaguely knew as ‘The Miami Vice Guy’. So, I knew there was no way they would know about a favorite show of mine from my childhood, Family Affair. The show featured Sissy, Buffy, Jody, and their caregiver Mr. French. Played by Sebastian Cabot, Mr. French was an English gentleman’s gentlemen to bachelor-uncle turned instant-parent, Bill Davis, in this sitcom of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Although there were many episodes of the show that I remember fondly, I loved the one where Mr. French prepared the children a meal of ‘Untidy Josephs’. After all, you can’t really be cultured if you’re eating regular ol’ Sloppy Joes now can you? I love the simplicity of this concept. The meal was basic hamburger mixed with some...

03 Feb

Posted at 13:39h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured
0 Likes

Once upon a time I only cheered for two football teams, the Colts and whoever was versing (as my son used to say) the Patriots. But, when Peyton Manning went to the Broncos in 2012, part of our Hoosier hearts went to Denver. A new era dawned where it was officially acceptable to begin supporting a new team. We had an Orange Crush on the Denver Broncos. It was 1998 when both my family and Manning moved to Indiana—coincidence? Peyton had signed a ginormous rookie contract with the Colts franchise; we were simply coming back home. My guess is that Manning had no idea at that time that he would think of Indiana as home one day, too. As any Hoosier knows, Manning wasn’t just another quarterback. He was different. Special. Reporters and fans alike began to see signs of just how special early on when he was asked what he was going to do with a record-breaking, rookie-making $48M salary. The 22 year-old Manning replied, “Earn it”. And that he did. He would live, eat, and breathe football. That’s what makes him a football genius. Yet some accounts depict him as completely inept as basic tasks like hooking up a DVR or...

19 Jan

Posted at 12:59h in A Message From Dawn, Home Featured
0 Likes

It’s true.  Even in the middle of a bitterly cold Indiana winter where the wind chill is as negative as the nightly news, it’s all rainbows and lollipops at the Community Foundation.  We can’t help it; it’s our mission.  We connect people who care with causes that matter like it’s our job—because it is!  None of us are shy about sharing what we are blessed to do for a living.  In a nutshell, we get to help the most generous people in our community learn how to make donations to help the most worthy organizations and people in our community...