Thank you for your coverage of Affirmations' annual meeting on May 26 (Affirmations begins new plan, campaign; June 3, 2010). I am writing to clarify some of the details of that article regarding phase two of Affirmations' capital and endowment campaign, our "Campaign for the Future."
Readers of the article may incorrectly assume that the more than $1 million planned for this phase will go entirely to pay the outstanding mortgage on our facility. In fact, this phase of the campaign will address several areas of need for Affirmations.
Indeed, a portion of the funding is planned to supplement our current capital account to retire our mortgage as scheduled in 2011, but this represents less than 25 percent of the funds to be raised. In addition, we will be able to erase some short-term debt taken on over the last two years to ease economic realities, and we will also address a pension obligation we have in the wake of the collapse of the United Way Pension Program.
But the most exciting part of this campaign – for which about half of the money raised will be used – is that Affirmations will establish a funding reserve allowing us to do more than simply respond to cash flow anomalies and economic uncertainty; it will provide the opportunity to take prudent risks on new programs and services that are important to our community and begin planning and delivering them even before external funding sources are secured. In this way, we will be more responsive to the community's wants and needs, and also be able to focus on the horizon rather than the next grant cycle. This will fulfill a desire of the board to secure the fiscal health of the organization for the future, and has been an important pillar of our strategic plan for the last six years.
The health of our community's organizations is important to all of us. Affirmations' staff and board of directors are working very hard to find creative and successful methods to ensure that the community center is here for the long term.
{ITAL George Westerman
Former President, Affirmations Board of Directors}
