Last night, the Foundation had its meeting. It was sort of a special meeting. We had not been making a great success of our one task, raising money, and we had thought of ideas to help ourselves be more effective. Our new idea was to tap "Ambassadors." These would be residents with special devotion to the Village, who might have been around longer than some, who "knew" people, and who might have special effectiveness in whipping up donations. It's not clear how many such people we identified and invited, but it might have been around 10-15. We asked for RSVPs. We mostly didn't get any, most of those who did respond said they didn't want to be Ambassadors, and two people showed up.
So the big question is, what's wrong? The idea for a Foundation came before we were seated as Trustees. The inaugural, and statutory, Trustees were the Commission. They had about two, maybe three, Foundation meetings, which occurred immediately before Commission meetings, and the content of those Foundation meetings was to schedule the next meeting. There was no agenda, no effort, and no result. It was soon enough acknowledged that the Commissioners were either too busy or not interested enough to concern themselves with the Foundation, which was intended to receive tax-deductible contributions. So the Foundation Charter was changed so that the Trustees would no longer be the Commissioners. Interested Village residents were named. There were five of us, four men and one woman. The woman dropped out-- family responsibilities-- and was replaced by another woman. She has recently dropped out, too. Interestingly, one of her most salient pieces of parting advice was that we need more women on the Foundation.
So back to our task: raising money. We have three identified ways to do it. One is to raise money from Village residents, another is to find other donors/contributors/sponsors, and the the third is to operate fund-raising events. I have to be candid here. The idea of raising money from Village residents was my idea. I concocted a scheme of trying to get each household to donate $20 per year. My thinking was that who more than Village residents would take an interest in the Village, and whose responsibility was it more than our own to support and enhance ourselves? Anything that benefits the Village benefits us, its residents, homeowners, stakeholders. If we could have gotten that $20 bill from most households, it would have brought a very nice piece of change into the Foundation, and allowed us to do some nice, if comparatively modest, projects. I want to admit the failure of this plan. Way too many people could think of reasons not to donate $20 to the Foundation, or had better uses for the money, or needed to discuss it with their spouses, or said they couldn't afford it. We couldn't even get those who should be our most devoted residents to donate. Of five Commissioners, two donated $20, one donated $2, and two refused to donate. Clearly, I was barking up the wrong tree with this scheme.
We have approached some other potential contributors, too. We run "Food and Tunes," and we have tried to solicit sponsors. The sponsor of our first F&T was a bank. (If you want to open a bank account, consider City National Bank. Its closest branch is at the corner of Biscayne and 135th, in the strip mall at the southwest corner. They are a "local bank," they are nice people, and you should say you're a BP resident. They don't give out toasters any more, but they'll treat you well. And they tell me they have money to loan and an intent to get it out into the world, if you need something.) The sponsor of a later F&T was one of our residents, one of your neighbors. We've tried other likely sponsors, but we haven't succeeded, yet. This was actually one of the intentions of the Ambassador program. We hoped that some of our Ambassadors would have ins with possible donors outside the Park. But we would have had to have Ambassadors to actualize that potential. We're still hoping that this path will not ultimately be a dead end.
Food and Tunes is a minor series of events for us. It's not a real fund-raiser, in that it doesn't raise real funds, but it's fun, and it gets our name out there. What we hoped for was something with a bit more punch and splash. We're trying to plan a "gala," probably for October. If we can charge enough, but not so much as to inhibit attendees, and get sponsors, we may be able to have a nice and productive event. Let's hope so. Well, at least I hope so. We've also consider "events" like a road race or golf tournament or something. These things may well come to pass.
One thing we realized we needed was help, in the form of ideas, time, and legwork. We need people with creativity and organizational skills. So we're also open to forming committees to take up projects. Steve Taylor is a busy attorney. I'm a psychiatrist. Supreme Dorvil is a medical/podiatric student who just told me last night he has sworn off fun until he finishes studying so he can pass his Boards. Victor Romano is a professor at Barry. So we're all interested, but this isn't exactly far up any of our streets, and we realized we needed a kind of knowledge and experience base, and maybe energy for this, that we might not have on our own.
We hit upon one other idea at our desperation meeting last night. We've tried to get Village residents interested, at least interested enough to donate $20 a year, but it may be that they just didn't take it personally enough. Until recently, we didn't even have a flagship project to try to promote. (Now we do. It's resurfacing the tot lot.) But we thought maybe the projects don't have to be ours. Maybe they can be yours. Or anyone's. So we're planning to promote and "sponsor" your project. You tell us what you'd like to see happen, we'll approve it and get behind it, we'll give it Foundation imprimatur, and we'll help you promote it and hold the money. Maybe there will be two or three such projects. Maybe there will be 10. We'll circulate a list, and your neighbors can check off the ones they like, and tell us how much money they want to donate to which projects. I'll give you some examples. Chuck Ross wants to raise money for bonuses for our employees. I want to raise money for public art. Gage Hartung would like to install a vita course. See what I mean?
Remember, we now have on open spot on the Foundation Board. We were thinking to tap H Weitz, who is your neighbor who lives on Griffing at about 119th or 120th. He's a very good guy, and he would be great on the Foundation. Of course, he is a...um...he, and we were thinking of a...um...she, but let us know what you think. Any appointment has to be approved by the Commission, so we're only talking here. No deal is done.
PS: Come on, be a sport. Cough up $20. Give it to Taylor, me, Supreme, Victor, or bring it to Village Hall and tell Maria Camara or Ana Garcia it's for the Foundation. And bring another $20 from your neighbor. It's your neighborhood, and your Foundation.
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