The Ketchikan Community Foundation recently received $50,000 from the Rasmuson Foundation.  Board Chair Tom Schulz says the Ketchikan foundation was able to receive the matching grant after raising $25,000 locally.

“We had a founding donors program this year which will end on December 31st.  We will have raised more than $25,000 by the end of the year, but will have a different program next year.  We’ll be reaching out to different people and different organizations to help us build that endowment fund.”

Schulz says donations so far have come from a variety of individuals and businesses with amounts ranging from $50 to $5000.  Now that the organization has more than $75,000, Schulz says funds should soon be available to assist other Ketchikan non-profits.   

“The money that’s raised is deposited in an investment account that is managed by the Alaska Community Foundation.  Each year we get the income from that account.  We get 4 percent that we can award to non-profits in Ketchikan to help them out with whatever projects we approve.”

He says the foundation hopes to continue to raise more local funds.

“The Ketchikan Community Foundation, one of its main tasks, as I see it, is to grow that account every year.  We try to add to that every month.  We try to raise money that gets deposited in that account.  That money is invested and the principal just stays there and grows.  We don’t spend the principal.  We award a percentage of the profits and that money comes back to Ketchikan.”

Schulz says a process for distributing funds to local non-profits has not yet been established, but is under development.

In addition to the matching grant, Rasmuson also gave the local foundation $5,000 that can be used immediately.  Schulz says, based on comments received during a meeting in September, the money will likely be used for board training.

“There were a number of non-profits represented there and one of the things that we heard over and over was a desire to have board training available to new board members, and also to help them work on a project that they are having trouble putting together.  Right now we’re in the process of getting proposals from several facilitators for board training.  We’re going to try to do that in January, but there are a lot of details to be worked out yet.”

The Ketchikan Community Foundation was established less than a year ago and is an affiliate of the Alaska Community Foundation.  Its mission is to raise donations to support a long-term philanthropic fund for Ketchikan.