This Spring brings a major change to OICF as Kate Long has announced plans to move on. Kate has worked with OICF for a decade, joining when we were a staff of two and making about $75,000 in community grants annually. To say that her work was transformative would be an understatement.
Kate started out as our finance administrator. She quickly grew frustrated with our Quickbooks setup and challenging donor management platform. Fortunately for the universe, she is married to Chris Sutton, who (patiently?) listened to her (likely nightly) tales of woe and soon offered to provide a fix. In 2012, the Small Dog (now CommunitySuite) program was launched, seamlessly integrating financials, grantmaking, and donor management- a total game-changer for OICF and now for hundreds of Community Foundations across the US and beyond.
Kate quickly realized that the program could provide a new way to run our annual grantmaking, opening it up to an online process, and soon the GiveOrcas program was born. Kate is currently facilitating the 19th GiveOrcas catalog. During her tenure, our annual grantmaking has grown and we have raised millions of dollars for community programs. We now regularly distribute $400-500,000 annually through the GiveOrcas campaigns alone. The number of donors through OICF has also increased dramatically to over 600 during our last campaign. Kate has produced a guidebook on the process which is helping communities launch similar programs around the nation.
What an amazing gift to the community, near and far. Kate’s impact will be felt for generations to come. Quite the legacy. Her immediate plans are to visit her daughter Arla on the Eastcoast once she gets her vaccine and then to enjoy the summer. Whatever comes after that, I am sure she’ll be wildly successful.
Megan Neal will be assuming much of the grants work and we are hiring for the Communications role. I look forward to introducing our newest team member in a month or two. Change is our one constant.
I hope you are all enjoying this time of renewal and rejuvenation whatever your faith and practice.
All the best,
Hilary