The Excelsior Foundation's Annual Report with Don Draayer
Our meeting on October 23rd was the annual report from our club’s foundation board. Speaker was Don Draayer, the chair of the board. Other members of the current board are Steve Frazier, Jim Olds, Dave Peterka, and Terry Roeser.
Don handed out a written report for each attendee, and verbally covered some of the important points. He started with a brief history of our club’s foundation, started in 2007, and brought us up to date with the leadership and policies of the foundation since then. He then reminded us that there are different places that our money goes. The club has an operating fund that handles day-to-day expenses, an emergency (reserve) fund, Happy Bucks donations, and then the two Rotary Foundations. Donations to RI Foundation are reported and tracked in a different way, and all of the handling is done in Rotary’s office. Our last pot of money is the club’s own foundation, with accountability locally by our five elected trustees.
On page 3 and 4 of his handout, Don details the charitable donations by the club for the past 6 years and the remaining uncommitted balance.
The foundation board has placed the funds held by the club in the hands of an investment counselor who invests the funds to gain a better return than is available by leaving the funds in a bank savings account. The manager of the funds, Ann Wengronowitz of North Star Resource Group, was introduced and made a few comments.