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Download the Summer 2021 Newsletter from HAF+WRCF here (PDF 1MB).
In this Issue: HAF+WRCF’s New Strategic Vision; Saying ‘Farewell to Changemakers;' Upcoming Grant Deadlines; and COVID-19 Fund Updates.
BAYSIDE, CALIF. (Aug. 23, 2021) – Community members are invited to apply for grants through the Trinity Trust’s Community Response Grant Program by Friday, Oct. 15, 2021. Community Response Grants are designed to help projects where a small investment can make a lasting difference. Additional guidelines are available on the grant application, which can be found at https://www.hafoundation.org/Affiliates-Region/Trinity-Trust/Grants#CRC.
About the Trinity Trust
The Trinity Trust was created by the residents of Trinity County California to improve the quality of life in their region and to keep the local capital local and working for the benefit of the community. The Trinity Trust strives to be a leader in communicating the value of keeping local resources and capital within the Trinity County region to support our community’s diverse array of organizations and issues.
Members of the Hmong Cultural Center Distribute Food During COVID-19. Photo Courtesy Marylyn Paik-Nicely.
The Humboldt Area Foundation and the Wild Rivers Community Foundation have released a follow up to its 2020 COVID-19 report. The COVID-19 Regional Response Fund Report, March 2020-March 2021 can be downloaded here.
The report looks at a one-year snapshot of rapid-response community grant making. Between March 2020 and March 2021, the foundations granted more than 200 grants totaling more than $2.7 million. The report outlines how the foundations shifted its standard grant making cycles into high gear to respond to ever-changing community needs. The report also details more than 20 lessons learned from a year of community response. Those lessons sketch an outline of ways nonprofits and community foundations can make substantive changes to be better prepared for the next disaster. The report is divided into an 8-page executive summary followed by four appendices to provide greater detail. Download the Executive Summary [PDF 11.1 mb] Appendix 1: Regional Context [PDF 422 kb] Appendix 2: Grants By Theme Tables [PDF 377 kb] Appendix 3: Lessons Learned from COVID-19 Response [PDF 267 kb] Appendix 4: List of All Donors & Funders [PDF 246 kb] Download the Initial COVID-19 Regional Response Fund Report [PDF 5.4 mb]
For contributions, giving and fund information email Gina Zottola or call 707-267-9905. For questions about grants from the fund email Craig Woods or call 707-442-2993 ext. 307. For media inquiries email Jarad Petroske or call 707-382-4716.
The end of the year is when many focus on charitable donations and giving back to causes they care about. Approximately 31% of all annual giving occurs in December alone, and approximately 12% of all annual giving occurs in just the last three days of the year.
This is a critical time for nonprofit organizations. This year, in particular, nonprofits are experiencing a heightened need for their services due to the impacts the COVID-19 pandemic has had on our region, while also feeling the strain of canceled or restructured fundraising events and other disruptions as public health concerns limited the ability to gather and engage.
At Humboldt Area Foundation & Wild Rivers Community Foundation, we continue to be inspired by the resilience and tenacity of local organizations despite the challenges of the last two years. In addition, we have deep gratitude for the generosity of donors who continue to step up and support them with financial gifts.
Ways to Give
There are many ways to participate in giving back this year-end, from making a cash contribution or donating appreciated stock, volunteering your time, or establishing a fund to support for the long term:
Special tax provisions in 2021
Usually, taxpayers who do not itemize their tax returns cannot claim a deduction for charitable contributions. This year, however, the Taxpayer Certainty and Disaster Relief Act of 2020 created a temporary provision that allows individual filers who do not itemize their returns to claim a deduction of up to $300 for cash contributions made to qualifying charities during 2021, or up to $600 for married individuals filing joint returns.
Donor Advised Funds (DAFs)
Donor Advised Funds allow donors to establish a fund for immediate tax benefits and then recommend grants to nonprofits on their timeline. Humboldt Area Foundation and Wild Rivers Community Foundation offer DAFs, as do many financial institutions.
Individual Retirement Account (IRA) Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD)
Individuals age 70½ and older can direct up to $100,000 per year tax-free from their IRA to operating charities through Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCD). However, it is important to note that Donor Advised Funds (DAFs) cannot receive QCDs.
Non-cash gifts such as appreciated stock
By making a gift of appreciated stock to a charitable organization, you can maximize your gift and avoid paying capital gains tax and may receive a charitable deduction for the fair market value of the stock.
Important dates & reminders for 2021 year-end contributions:
Many worthy nonprofits could use your support right now, and we encourage you to consider a charitable gift to an organization you love this giving season.
Not sure where to give and how to connect your philanthropic goals with the needs in the region? Feel free to call our team to hear more about current needs or how to give a gift to the Opportunity Fund at Humboldt Area Foundation & Wild Rivers Community Foundation to support emerging needs as they arise in our region. Visit HAFoundation.org/FindaFund or contact us to learn more.
Humboldt Area Foundation & Wild Rivers Community Foundation Holiday Hours:
Monday – Thursday 8:30 am – 5 pm
Closed Dec. 23 – Dec. 31
Please leave a voicemail with any time-sensitive donation or other issues during this time.
Contact our Donor Relations team:
Laurel Dalsted
Donor Relations & Development Director
Laureld@hafoundation.org
707-267-9905
Lindsey Zito
Donor Relations Manager
Lindseyz@hafoundation.org
707-267-9903
Please note our offices are open for in-person visits by appointment only. Please call or email in advance if you need assistance in person.
Three Eureka artists are winners of the 2021 Victor Thomas Jacoby award for artistic vision and creativity. Winners receive $10,000 each to support their work.
This year’s recipients are Shawn Gould, an award-winning scientific illustrator, and painter with an arresting life-mimicking style; Mo Harper-Desir, a multimedia artist who centers free speech, inclusion/equity education, and Black Joy in her work; and Marceau Verdiere, an educator, photographer and experimental painter whose work has been enjoyed throughout Humboldt County and abroad in Europe.
Victor Jacoby, an internationally-recognized Eureka visual artist whose chosen medium was French tapestry, established the Victor Thomas Jacoby Fund with Humboldt Area Foundation before his death in 1997 at age 52. Victor’s vision inspired his friend Dr. Rosalind Novick to make an additional gift to the fund and expand his dream of supporting local artists. This trust fund is dedicated to supporting Humboldt County visual artists and craftspeople and encourages exploring new ideas, materials, techniques, and mediums. In addition, the fund distributes annual cash awards to artists or craftspeople selected by a review panel of leading arts representatives.
Each fall, local artists apply through Humboldt Area Foundation for the Victor Thomas Jacoby Award by submitting ten examples of their work and vision for innovating and pushing their art to the next level.
Into the Wind by Shawn Gould / Courtesy the Artist
Shawn Gould
Art and nature have always been important parts of Shawn’s life. Growing up, he spent many days outdoors exploring the streams and woodlands near his home. These formative experiences first established his deep love of nature and his unending curiosity to see more. Along the way, he learned to follow the path less traveled, a path that he continues to explore today.
Shawn began his art career as an illustrator, creating award-winning science and natural history illustrations for clients like the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian Institute, and National Audubon Society. This was an important time to hone his skills and learn to be professional in a creative environment. After working as an illustrator for a decade, he was able to turn his attention to creating his own paintings full time.
Shawn’s work has received national recognition in American Art Collector, Western Art Collector, and American Artist Magazines. His paintings have been exhibited in the Buffalo Bill Art Show, Birds in Art, the Society of Animal Artists’ Art of the Animal, as well as galleries and museums across the nation. He has been awarded First Place in the Artists Magazine Annual Competition, First Place in the Richeson 75 Animals, Birds, and Wildlife Competition, and an Award of Excellence at the NatureWorks Art Show. Shawn is a Signature Member of the Society of Animal Artists.
See more at http://shawngould.com/
Video Courtesy the Artist
Mo is a first-generation, Queer arts activist from Western Massachusetts, working across the country to provide arts-based creation, education, and services for community growth. Mo is a mother to two free brown boys and considers herself a caretaker to her community.
Currently, Mo follows a career in Digital Media and Education/ Community Outreach and works as an artist and consultant through her micro-business Mo HD Creates. As an artist, Mo actively creates using multimedia visual arts, hip-hop, hip hop theater, dance, and poetry. You may also recognize Mo from her work with Humboldt County organizations Black Humboldt and Access Humboldt. Mo’s ideas were birthed out of a love of mixed media, social justice, and implementing change into the world. As a media worker, Mo is actively working to create safe spaces for radical media creation and sharing, while addressing the issues and structures of inequalities surrounding race, gender, class, poverty, and more.
Mo values free speech, inclusion/equity, education, open communication, and Black Joy! Mo’s goals are to produce and support radical, free art to create inclusive and truthful messaging that is accessible to everyone; create uplifting and positive entertainment that is available from a wide array of artists; to educate communities on social justice issues, art skills, art creation and more; and to create a self-liberated future generation.
See more at https://www.mohdcreates.com/ and https://youtu.be/2qnntuePZtI
Photograph courtesy Marceau Verdiere
His work, primarily in paintings and in photography, is deeply influenced by the Japanese aesthetic philosophy of Wabi-Sabi. In his paintings, Verdiere explores how memories might be visualized as traces left on one’s soul, the patina that defines our unicity. Verdiere is especially interested in the seemingly inconsequential instants—doubt, silences, daydreams—that are the fabric of our daily lives. To translate these ideas into paintings, he experiments with both the application and removal of pigments, creating marred and injured surfaces, rich as life itself, revealing traces and scars, like faded memories too stubborn to be forgotten. In his photographic work, Verdiere seeks out the worn-out, decaying, and thus overlooked surfaces around us. Aesthetically these images are often a visual inspiration for the paintings.
His work has been extensively shown in Humboldt and in Europe with several exhibits in France, Barcelona, and this past summer in Vienna. He has collaborated with the French Catholic church on a large-scale exhibition on the theme of doubt in the bible at a Cathedral in Wissembourg and worked on video-art projects in Prague with filmmakers and artists at FAMU and the Cerny Meet Factory. Verdiere has been an artist in residence in Spain, Sweden, and France. His work is present in collections around the world.
Currently, Verdiere is completing a master’s in art education at the University of Strasbourg, France, and is an IB Visual Arts and IB Art History teacher at Northcoast Preparatory and Performing Arts Academy.
See more at https://marceauverdiere.com/
The 2022 Victor Thomas Jacoby Award application will launch in the fall and will be open to all visual artists and craftspeople in Humboldt County.
About the Humboldt Area Foundation
Vera Vietor established the Humboldt Area Foundation in 1972. Since then, more than $70 million in grants and scholarships have been awarded in Humboldt, Del Norte, Curry, and Trinity Counties. Humboldt Area Foundation promotes and encourages generosity, leadership and inclusion to strengthen our communities.
For more information on services provided by the Foundation, please visit the Humboldt Area Foundation website at hafoundation.org or call (707) 442-2993.
Kindly note that the Foundation offices will be closed for the Winter holidays Thursday December 23rd to Friday December 31st.
The Humboldt Area Foundation and Wild Rivers Community Foundation have announced a new strategic vision to guide the organization through the next ten years and beyond.
Download the new Strategic Vision 2021-2031 (PDF)
Download the Strategic Vision FAQ (PDF)
The new vision imagines the four-county region of Curry, Del Norte, Trinity, and Humboldt counties as a "Thriving, Just, and Equitable Region" supported by four goals, which include:
· Racial Equity
· Thriving Youth and Families
· Healthy Ecosystems and Environment
· A Just Economy and Economic Development
Together, these four goals will inform the programmatic and strategic work of the organization. As the Foundation embarks on this strategic direction, both HAF and WRCF have been reorganized to enable this vision. The Foundation now comprises four main teams, each with a specific mission and portfolio of work. The teams include:
· Strategy, Program & Community Solutions Team
· Advancement & Philanthropic Innovation Team
· Executive, Culture & Public Policy Team
· Finance & Administration Team
The new organizational structure will empower staff to utilize their many skills in direct service across Trinity, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties in California and Curry County in Oregon.
Founded in 1972, the Humboldt Area Foundation is nearing its 50th anniversary. During that time, the Foundation has been recognized at the state and national level for innovative work to support our region. From incubating grassroots organizations to leadership development and training programs to local loan and impact investment portfolios, the Humboldt Area Foundation and its regional affiliate, the Wild Rivers Community Foundation, has long-supported capacity building, social and financial infrastructure, and philanthropic advice essential to the wellbeing and progress of our region.
The Wild Rivers Community Foundation was established in 2004 as a regional affiliate of the Humboldt Area Foundation, serving all of Del Norte and Curry counties.
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