The Mt. Pleasant Fund officially incorporated in October of 2002. The idea at that time was to create a foundation wherein our friends and family members could collaborate to find nonprofit organizations that we were collectively enthusiastic about and to then pool some of our resources (both financial and otherwise) to support those nonprofits. Since October of 2002, the Fund has made contributions totaling more than $100,000 to twelve different nonprofit organizations around the country.
When the fund first started out, we identified minorities living in poverty as our funding priority. We then refined our guidelines by identifying children living in poverty as our priority. Most recently we have been focusing on supporting those organizations that work to support teen parents and their children. We have also recently restricted our giving to programs either in Colorado or Massachusetts.
Since its inception, the Fund has had the same four directors. Flip and Liz Rosenberry, Flip’s mother Peggy Rosenberry, and Liz’s brother-in-law Jimmy Curley were the founding directors and have continued to serve in that capacity since then. While there have been contributions from people besides those founding directors (a financial contribution to the Fund entitles the donor to membership for one year from the receipt of that contribution), Flip, Liz, Peggy, and Jimmy have been the only members to serve as directors.
At the October, 2010 Annual Meeting the Directors voted unanimously to focus on two things over the course of the next year. The first priority will involve increasing our role with the nonprofits to whom we make grants. We will do this by exploring opportunities for our membership base to not only provide financial support to our funding partners but to provide volunteer support as well. There will be no restrictions in terms of the type of agencies we will consider funding other than that the agencies must be recommended to us by at least one of our members.
Our second priority will involve increasing our membership base.
We believe that these two priorities can and will work hand-in-hand.
Flip and Liz continue to hold as a priority of the Fund, collaborating with their family and friends in a way that enriches each other as well as our broader world community. It has never been solely about impacting our world in a positive way. Rather it has been about doing it in a way that involves those we care most about and have such great respect for (our family and our friends).
Please, if this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of, make a contribution to the Mt. Pleasant Fund, and let’s make a difference together.