02 Aug Vital People/Vital Causes August 2024

Drawing on key data and themes from our Vital Signs 2024 report, we will present a new Vital People/Vital Causes online and in the Coast Reporter on the first Friday of every month.

Vital Cause: Financial Stability for Charities

Charitable organizations on the Sunshine Coast are heavily reliant on two things to help them deliver services and stage community events: volunteers and revenue from grants, donations, and paid admission.

The Sunshine Coast Foundation has long recognized the importance of helping charitable organizations achieve financial stability through endowments that are professionally invested and managed to create income over the long term.

Donations to an endowment fund are carefully invested to generate income, and this annual income is used to make grants. The Foundation currently stewards 38 funds for 28 different local charities who want a predictable and sustainable source of funding over the long term to support their work and activities. Collectively, these funds total $5.6 million and account for half of the assets currently under the Foundation’s administration.

Vital Person: Jane Davidson
Former Artistic and Executive Director, Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts

Jane Davidson, who retired from her position as Artistic and Executive Director of the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts in 2022, has spent her entire working life with arts organizations and knows first-hand the challenges of securing funding.

Like most charities, the Festival of the Written Arts has accepted donations since its beginnings, but when a donor came forward in 2008 with a significant contribution and a request that the money be used to generate future income the Festival could access for ongoing expenses, an endowment administered by a community foundation was a natural fit.

“Funding has always been top-of-mind [for arts organizations], and stable and predictable funding is such a gift and that’s what an endowment offers,” Jane says. “Endowment funding is there should there be a funding shortfall. It’s there should there be a revenue shortfall in terms of ticket sales or sponsorships.”

The Sunshine Coast Foundation’s Vital Signs 2024 found that ticket sales for the Festival have still not bounced back fully from the COVID-19 pandemic. After drawing 8,251 attendees in 2019, attendance was 5,111 in 2022 and 5,740 in 2023. Income from its endowments helped the Festival through a difficult time.

The Festival of the Written Arts now benefits from six Sunshine Coast Foundation administered endowments with more than $1 million in total capital, including the Legacy of Literacy Fund, which Davidson and former Festival president Jean Bennett spearheaded as a major fundraising initiative.

“All it takes is one healthy bequest to launch an endowment,” Jane says, acknowledging that not every organization is in a position to create an endowment. “But, if you get a windfall through a bequest or a generous patron, consider putting it in a community foundation endowment.”

Supporting Charities on the Coast

The Sunshine Coast Foundation now administers more than $10.7 million in 88 endowments and, over the last twenty years, has disbursed more than $3 million in grants to over 100 local organizations. Since establishing their first endowment in 2008, the Festival of the Written Arts has received $258,000 in funding from the Foundation.

Financial stability for the charities making a tangible difference in our community is a result of Vital People, like Jane Davidson, and generous donor contributions made to the Foundation.

If this Vital Cause speaks to you, consider making a gift to one of the many Agency Funds held at the Foundation, including the Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts Legacy of Literacy Fund: https://bit.ly/SCFcharities

If you are interested in establishing a new fund in support of a local charitable organization of your choice, contact our Executive Director, Erin Storey: ed@sunshinecoastfoundation.org

For more information on our Vital Signs program, click here.

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Interview and article by Sean Eckford.