Help needed to achieve vision for Sisters Country

Sisters Community Foundation is looking for community members to join with it to help provide Sisters Country with the exciting new benefits voted for by the Sisters community in the Community Visioning Project.

As many of you know, the recently completed Community Visioning Project included extensive community input and voting, and resulted in a Vision Action Plan. This community-based action plan was developed to engage the City and its partners to achieve that vision over time, focusing on the next five years. The Action Plan contains a number of strategies, each with corresponding actions to be undertaken. For each strategy, the Vision Action Plan identifies recommended lead and supporting partners to implement the actions. In a number of cases, the recommended partner was a community foundation.

The Sisters Community Foundation (SCF) is prepared to assume those responsibilities as part of its tasks.

Initially begun in 2016, SCF has been at work laying the extensive groundwork needed for an organization that can professionally, responsibly, and effectively serve Sisters Country in the role of a locally based community foundation.

Its mission, “Serving Sisters and the greater Sisters area by providing support to programs, projects and assets that enhance the quality of life for the people in Sisters” and goals “Establishing a mechanism for the community to fund charitable purposes in the Sisters community not served by existing local charitable organizations” and “Providing assistance to local charitable organizations and community projects and programs” show in broad terms the future scope of its work.

The actions laid out in the community’s Vision Action Plan that are recommended to be assigned to the Foundation in either a lead or supporting role include (a) establishing an online platform as a community human resource database to serve community organizations looking for specialized assistance; (b) establishing an online platform to enable community members to suggest innovative curriculum ideas to the school district and volunteer their skills; (c) creation of a “pitch night” to present and potentially crowdfund new school program ideas; (d) re-purposing a portion of the existing elementary school facility (upon its availability) to serve as a multi-purpose community center; (e) assisting in the effort to establish subsequent ownership and operation of that community center; (f) implementing community-wide leadership training for Sisters Country; (g) identifying and addressing existing leadership barriers that deter people from pursuing leadership opportunities; and (g) developing a mentorship program to pair existing community leaders with emerging

leaders.

Each of the proposed actions dovetail with the goals and mission of the Sisters Community Foundation, and SCF is looking forward to doing its part to help achieve these important community goals.

To accomplish this, SCF is looking to increase the size of its Board of Directors, strengthening it for the tasks that lie ahead.

The Board of Directors, at this early stage of the foundation’s growth, is a working board.

Besides fulfilling the traditional board responsibilities, board members will additionally assume some of the tasks traditionally performed by staff.

Ideal candidates will be Sisters Country residents who believe in and can prioritize the mission and goals of SCF, with skillsets and/or expertise in typical foundation needs (examples: fundraising and project management).

They will need to be able to attend monthly board meetings, get up to speed with the existing SCF policies and procedures, and be responsible for the conduct of the projects/services and other activities to which they are assigned.

If you would like to join the Sisters Community Foundation, please contact us at sisterscommunity

[email protected] Let us know a bit about your background and your reasons and motivation to provide an important new benefit to the community we love.