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Matching grants provided to arts group endowments

Community Foundation

In partnership with two local charities, Sunshine Coast Community Foundation recently received two grants from the Canadian Government worth almost $43,000.

The Canadian Cultural Investment Fund provides matching grants to arts-focused charities that donate funds to a permanent endowment at a community foundation. In late 2017, both Coast Recital Society and Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts took advantage of this opportunity by making donations to their permanent endowments at Sunshine Coast Community Foundation. As a result, the foundation received a grant of $16,489 for the Coast Recital Society Agency Endowment and another grant of $26,383 for the Festival of the Written Arts Legacy of Literacy Endowment.

“These grants will significantly grow the capital permanently held by the foundation in these two funds,” said foundation chair Vicki Dobbyn. “Each year the foundation makes grants from the earnings on those funds to Coast Recital Society and the Festival of the Written Arts. With these contributions to the endowed funds, we will be able to make larger grants in future years.”

“We only recently created our endowment fund with the Foundation,” noted John Storer, president of the Coast Recital Society. “So, it is especially exciting for us to see it growing so quickly.”

“The Festival of the Written Arts created its endowment back in 2012 and it has grown remarkably since then. We really like the certainty of a yearly grant toward our operations,” said Jean Bennett, president of the board of directors.

– Submitted by Wendy L. Francis