Reneé Johnston, President and CEO

In the fall issue of Cornerstone, I mentioned that a new SCF mission statement was drafted as a result of the Board of Directors commenting that we could do a better job of communicating the role of the foundation. After spending quality time on choosing the most appropriate words to define our services in the community, the following mission statement was established:

“The Saginaw Community Foundation fulfills donor wishes and enables community initiatives to come to life, now and forever.”

In addition to a new mission statement the SCF staff and Board of Directors spent the past year establishing the 2014-16 strategic plan. With the help of a number of community members we identified what the foundation has been doing well, what we can do to improve and where our focus should be. In the end, we identified four Pillars of Success, 1) Providing strategic leadership in our community; 2) Growing our endowment; 3) Practicing impactful grantmaking; 4) Stewardship of our resources, human and financial. Also, the community suggested, and we agreed, that we should focus some of our efforts on early education, youth development and community development. After developing a new strategic plan over the past year, the SCF staff, Board of Directors and myself are excited to implement the new plan. We feel confident it will take the community to another level as well as the foundation.

If you are interested in reviewing the detailed version of the 2014-16 Strategic Plan, it is available upon request.

Speaking of plans, it was 30 years ago the initial plan was developed to establish a permanent endowment which would grow in perpetuity and be available to help meet the current and future needs of Saginaw County. Over the past 30 years, the foundation has grown to $48 million in assets (as of Dec. 31, 2013), eight dedicated full-time staff, two program assistant interns, one FORCE intern, over 500 endowment funds under management and hundreds of supporters who brought us to where we are today. Let’s just say, we’re 30 years strong and ready for many more.