Heron Creek Community Foundation
Meeting Minutes
April 7, 2023 10 AM
Present: Dave, Roy, Kevin, Ona Lee, Deanne, Patty, Bill, Nick, Maria, Sharon
• Treasurer’s report: We raised $13,895 for All Faiths Food Bank. Roy will arrange a check presentation. Balance in holding account is approximately $16,000, pending the payout to All Faiths, and not including the money that is being held for this year’s golf tournament. The endowment is at $464,538.73. Nothing new to report on 501 (c)(3) status.
• Tom Coyne has stepped down due to lack of time availability. Roy is appointing Paul Stebing to the replacement spot
• Website: Kevin and Dave met with Ron Bowersock to discuss options moving forward. After a monthlong evaluation period, they have decided that contracting GoDaddy to build a new site is our best option. The cost will be approximately $3,000 upfront and $300 per year, with a timeline of six weeks or so. Kevin will get firm pricing and we can approve by email in order to get started as soon as possible.
• Kevin will be running a video concert featuring Garth Brooks at the club on May 10. This will allow us to advertise the event as “sponsored by the foundation”, giving us a great opportunity for some outreach.
Committee Reports:
• R & D: Website already covered. Kevin working on letter to former members. Dave and Kevin will discuss how to disseminate the spring newsletter. Membership report: we have 193 members, with an overall percentage of 22% of housesholds. We are discussing strategies for improving this dismal number. The current number of inactive members is 150; our belief is that this is largely due to members unaware that their membership has lapsed.
• Kevin has negotiated the contract for the Vogues concert, which is scheduled for September 14 at the North Port Performing Arts Center. Band cost is $11,000 with a $5,000 deposit due now, and the venue is $1,740. Our total cost will be $14,240. We will start selling tickets ASAP, which will be done in the same manner as the DuPrees concert that was cancelled in 2020. Ticket price is $45, which gives us a break-even point of 313 tickets. Target for selling tickets is May 1.
• Publicity: Dave and Kevin will devise a strategy for sending out the newsletter. Dave will print some to leave at Chamber office. Several members will attend a business networking event through the chamber to advertise the concert as well as get folks thinking about the golf tournament.
• Grants: Now is the time to start scheduling site visits for our grant recipients. We definitely want to do North Port Senior Center. Is there a need for other visits? Sharon: Salvation Army would be a good one when we find out where they are operation out of now. Committee will start meeting soon for the next cycle. Bill wants to put on the board’s radar whether we want to do more, smaller grants, or fewer, larger grants. The board would like to review the online grant application process to make sure that it’s not too cumbersome, so that we can improve the process with the new website. IDEA: New feature for website – Spotlight on (insert grant recipient), with information on what they do and how they used our money.
• Community service: Wrapup of All Faiths funding drive. In the past it was just a food drive; now that it’s a fund drive we need to reevaluate the process as it seems we have lost control of it to some extent.
Old business:
• Postpone Entertainment card incentive for now due to other stuff going on.
• Cost of printed directory will be about $5,000 for around 1,000 units. The goal is to print and make it available for free to members of the foundation and sell to others. Advertising space should (hopefully) pay for the printing. We would need someone to take on the project – check to see if Paul Stebing would be interested in taking control.
• Quarterly dance events at club idea has been supplanted by Dave and Kevin taking over trivia at the club, returning it to the exact way it was before. First event is May 3. This will be treated as a banquet event so that we can solicit members etc., and waiving the banquet fee ($500). The downside is that it cannot be advertised in the newsletter, but the club has offered to send out emails to everyone and word of mouth will be important.
• We need to discuss dropping the 3 year membership option and just have everyone renew each year. It hasn’t improved membership at all and has really only cost us some money. So moved by Maria, seconded by Dave, passed unanimously.
Next meeting scheduled for May 17.
Adjourn at 11:18 AM