Steve Wade is Vice President, Community Impact at the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation.
GTRCF was established as a child of Rotary Charities in 1992, with help from the Kellogg Foundation Youth Endowment. The Foundation serves five counties and in its thirty years has made gifts in the total sum of $123Million. It has total assets of $104Million.
The Rotary Endowment connects the shared work of Rotary Charities and the Community Foundation--promoting philanthropy to enrich the quality of life in our region. The Foundation Board of Directors awards grants based on recommendations by Rotary Charities representatives who act as advisors to the Endowment.
To help strengthen the good works of Rotary Clubs and their members, GTRCF's Rotary Endowment also matches charitable gifts of Clubs and their individual members. Thus the Endowment matches up to $3,000 per year on a $1:$1 basis of charitable Club grants within the community, such as $3,000 of our Club's grant to the Women's Resource Center.
Each year the Endowment also matches up to $250 in gifts by individual Rotarians to 501(c)(3) nonprofits within the Foundation's five-county area.
In addition to taking advantage of the matching grants, our Benzie Sunrise Rotary Foundation has its own endowment fund with the Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation.