Music & 9 Special Projects: The Care 4 Cortes Campaign

The Care 4 Cortes campaign officially ends today, but there is still an opportunity to donate this weekend. 

Manda Aufochs Gillespie, Executive Director of the Cortes Island Community Foundation, explained “There’s still a day or two where we’ll leave up our Care for Cortes donation page on Cortes Foundation.ca.  you can  still see all the different projects that were highlighted. Give to them,   if you have the financial wherewithal.  It doesn’t have to be a lot.  $20 to  something like MicroGrants for Neighbours or to the Cortes Death Caring Collective, makes a difference. If a lot of people do it, this makes a big difference.” 

“One of our jobs as the Community Foundation, is to make it easier for organizations who are doing the work to get the funds that they need and to help those who have money to give in ways that they know will have an impact. I hope that some people will still be like, ’okay, this is how I’d like to say ‘thank you’ back to this place that I visited or to this place that I call home.’”

Cortes Currents: What was the overall goal of Care 4 Cortes?  

Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “Our big goal was really to help people understand more of the projects and activities that are happening. The financial goal: we basically said to our partners this year that we were hoping to raise $500 into each fund.  Most of the funds raised that much, but not all did. Some of them got a few thousand.  The ones that really did best through this campaign did their own awareness raising, that includes Cortes Radio and the Dr. Emily Ellingson Scholarship Fund.”

“I think we did a great job of having fun and ensuring that everybody who comes to Cortes in the summer begins to understand a little bit more of the often hidden work that goes into caring for this place that we call home.” 

“We combined it with our Village Commons Music Series. We were like, ‘Okay, if we’re going to be on the airwaves anyway, if people are going to be coming, could we actually just have fun with it? Could fundraising not be the kind of ‘oppressive tons of work/big event/ hard thing’ for small nonprofits? Could it just be part of the fabric of the community?’ So we combined it with this beloved thing which is  the Village Commons Music Series, which we do with Folk  University and the Radio Station anyway. 

“There’s so many projects. We couldn’t choose all of them. We knew we had  nine weeks  so we said, ‘okay, we’ll basically choose a fund a week during that time.’”  

The Nine projects were: 

Manda Aufochs Gillespie: “We featured  projects that already have funds with the Cortes Island Community Foundation, or we’re setting up funds.”

“One of the things I’m really excited about is the Emily Ellingson Bursary Fund. This is  a fund that many people know about because it’s been around and helping to support Cortes Island students for quite a few years. Emily’s family came to us this year and said that they are ready  to basically have this fund stewarded at the Community Foundation. Now people can get tax donations when they donate. We’re hoping to get more and more members of the community supported as they’re launched into their post high school years as students from Cortes. The story of Dr. Emily Ellingson – the incredible force of connectivity,  love and who she was in the world – possibility gets to live on. We raised some additional dollars for that fund.  All the dollars were matched and  there was no overhead fee, etc. So, the money is just going right back out to scholarships.” 

“Another one of the projects that was featured this year is the MicroGrants for Neighbors.  I always love talking about MicroGrants for neighbors. It is actually a project that started from Cortes Literacy and Folk University. The idea is quite simple.  Small amounts of money without a lot of bureaucracy given directly to neighbors can make awesome, connective, incredible things happen in our community. This is a project where $10 or $20 given to micro grants can fund a 10th of a project. Every year I encourage people to apply, so they can make their great ideas happen and have fun doing it.”  

“As part of my role with Folk U Radio,  I got to host a number of these Village Common Music events, and then talk a little bit about the  projects that were being highlighted. It was a lot of fun for me. I think what was most interesting was how many people came to me afterwards and just said, ‘Oh my goodness, that was so fun.’” 

We did a week for instance, where we were  highlighting our new climate fund and we had Chris Hatch and Linda Solomon (from Canada’s National Observer) talk about some of the work that they’ve been doing around climate reporting. These are  journalists and publishers and people who are often used to a larger scale event, and both of them came up afterwards and said, ‘Oh, that was just the most fun!’ 

“I also heard from Margaret Verschuur from the Death and Dying Collective,  and from quite a few of the musicians, just about how enjoyable the whole process was.” 

“I think a lot of us who are quite passionate about the work we do, don’t like asking for money, trying to fundraise, writing grants – all the work of trying to come up with the money so that we can care  for Cortes.  I think the idea  that it doesn’t have to always be hard, that it could be fun, was really enjoyable.”

“We didn’t bring in millions, but at least it set the framework for this idea that we can  at least be talking about the things that matter to us in a way that can be quite enjoyable and  make it quite easy for those who want to give back and want to and are able to do it through financial donations.”

If you wish to make a donation, go to https://cortesfoundation.ca/care-for-cortes-organizations/

Top image credit: Gathering of Cortes Island’s Social Profits – courtesy Cortes Foundation website

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