An important announcement from Beverly Johnston
Over time, the work of the Blessings Project Foundation has moved away from producing programs and housing events to a focus on making grants to other non-profits. With the closing of 5ive&4orty’s gallery space, where the Blessings Project Foundation has been housed for the last nine months, we’ve been challenged to reassess the future of the work and to plan in a way that makes the best use of our resources. It has led to some significant changes in how we’ll do business, but the work of the foundation will continue and we will resume the grant application process in October, after we’ve had time to get settled.
As of September 2011, I am retiring as President of the Foundation and taking a position on the Board of Directors. Amanda Fitzgerald, who has been an active Board member since the inception of the Foundation, will be taking over as President and Executive Director. Amanda has direct experience running a non-profit, having served from 1998 to 2002 as Program Director and then Executive Director and Board Member of BoysCamp, a Winston-Salem based organization benefiting underprivileged boys.
We are grateful to Amy Garland, who will be leaving her position as Director, for the dynamic and energetic leadership she’s provided over the last 2 years. She’s been a wonderful asset to the Foundation, expanding our position in the community in many valuable ways. Many thanks and all our best wishes, Amy.
I am proud of the work of the Foundation and grateful to have had the opportunity to be involved with so many great people and programs over the years. I am excited about the chance to continue in my new position on the board and to offer my support for the ongoing work under Amanda Fitzgerald’s direction.
For the immediate future, we will receive mail at PO BOX 1058, Lewisville, NC 27023 and telephone calls at (336) 945-0144. The website will remain the same and you can contact us at the email addresses listed.
Beverly Johnston
info@blessingsproject.org
Just a short note to introduce myself: I have been an involved member of the Board of the Blessings Project Foundation from the beginning, and I am very excited to begin work as Executive Director. Prior to that, I served as Program Director, Executive Director and Board Member of BoysCamp, a small Winston-Salem nonprofit serving underprivileged boys. BoysCamp reached out to a population in need, a group overlooked and at-risk, and afforded its participants an opportunity to go to camp each summer, to go hiking, camping and to learn outdoor survival skills.
It was during my tenure as BoysCamp Executive Director, however, that I discovered how difficult it is for smaller, less well-known nonprofits to obtain grant funding. This is why the work of Blessings Project Foundation is so important: the Foundation focuses on providing grant support to smaller nonprofits. These are organizations with worthy projects, organizations working directly in our communities, but which are often overlooked for funding by larger foundations.
In the five-plus years since its establishment, the Blessings Project Foundation has made an important and positive impact, through its program offerings, and now in its dedicated capacity as small grant foundation for small nonprofits. We will continue our focus on the environment, natural healing, the arts, animal advocacy, and human rights. We will continue to look for nonprofits with big ideas but perhaps with lesser funding, organizations that are doing grassroots work in their communities, groups that give voice to causes or to a population that might otherwise go unnoticed. In our upcoming grant cycle, we will give some preference to programs working with at-risk or underprivileged children, particularly those in the Piedmont-Triad region of North Carolina, where the Blessings Project Foundation was founded.
On a practical note, the Blessings Project Foundation will be streamlining its operations to reduce costs and in order to maximize the impact we can have with our funds. To that end, I will be working from my home office, reachable at (336) 945-0144. Please feel free to call me or to send me an email. I look forward to working with grant applicants, past and future, and to fostering the work of the Blessings Project Foundation.
Amanda Fitzgerald, Incoming Executive Director
