Our Story

Since incorporation in 1994, area residents have been instrumental in building permanent endowment funds now worth over $10,500,000.

OUR MISSION STATEMENT:

The Foundation will endeavor to make our community a better place to live by:
-developing a permanent endowment;
-assessing and responding to community needs;
-providing a vehicle and service for donors with varied interests and levels of giving.

The Interlake Community Foundation fulfills its mission by:
-attracting contributions, preferably in the form of permanent endowments without restriction or designation (Development);
-maintaining the purchasing power of the funds entrusted to the Foundation while achieving maximum returns consistent with prudent investment (Investment);
-making wise and effective distributions to meet community needs while respecting specific directions of donors (Grant Making); and
-providing leadership to the community in identifying problems, opportunities and appropriate responses (Community Leadership).

The Board of Directors are charged with the responsibilities of carrying out the mission and keeping the community well informed of the Foundation’s activities.

“The Interlake Community Foundation strives to be an inclusive organization, and we see the value in all peoples.”

We feel the concept of endowment funds can be summed up by this poem:

The Bridge Builder

BY WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE

An old man going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening cold and gray,
To a chasm vast and deep and wide.
Through which was flowing a sullen tide
The old man crossed in the twilight dim,
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.

“Old man,” said a fellow pilgrim near,
“You are wasting your strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day,
You never again will pass this way;
You’ve crossed the chasm, deep and wide,
Why build this bridge at evening tide?”

The builder lifted his old gray head;
“Good friend, in the path I have come,” he said,
“There followed after me to-day
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
This chasm that has been as naught to me
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be;
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him!”