YOUR AD HERE »

Yampa Valley Community Foundation hopes changes will advance charitable mission

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Mark Andersen is embracing change, and the executive director of the Yampa Valley Community Foundation hopes, by restructuring his staff, the charitable organization will be better prepared to meet the needs of the people it serves.

“We really focused on these job description, and we shuffled some responsibilities around because it allows us to provide services to our donors and being able to provide services to our nonprofits.”

The changes, which were announced at the end of February, came out of a series of strategic planning meetings held by the community foundation’s board of trustees last summer and fall. The board directed the staff to increase focus and expand their expertise in donor engagement, nonprofit services and financial management. The trustees felt, by doing those three key things, it would enable the organization to provide more effective services for donors and local nonprofit organizations.

The Yampa Valley Community Foundation has three full-time employees, including Andersen, the executive director; Helen Beall, who has shifted from marketing manager to community impact manager as part of the changes; and Emily Beyer, who is the donor engagement manager.

The staff also employees a part-time office manager Holly Wilson and has recently hired Kathleen Fitzsimmons, who will also work part-time in her role as the communication coordinator.

Andersen said Beyer will focus solely on philanthropic and donor services to assist with community leadership and expertise, while Beall will move from her position as marketing manager to a new role tasked with working with local nonprofits to focus on the needs of the community and leveraging funding to make impactful community grants.

The additional part-time communications coordinator was made possible thanks to a $1.6 million endowment, established in 1996, to generate funds to enable the Community Foundation to provide vital community services to support the annual operating expenses of the organization.

“Now is the time to secure the future of the Yampa Valley from community health issues to the arts, recreation, education and the environment. We aim to serve our community with excellent service for our nonprofits and local donors,” Andersen said. “We are taking our commitment seriously. To do that, we must have the best people in the right jobs and internal systems that maximize productivity, efficiency and results.”

Andersen said those results are part of the organization’s mission.

“There is a tagline that we have had since the beginning: ‘connecting people who care with causes that matter,’” Andersen said. “There are two sides to that equation. There are the people who care, which are our donors who give generously back to our community, and then there are the causes that matter, which are all the nonprofits that make our community the wonderful place that it is. Our role is to promote local charitable giving and connect those donors to the causes that they are passionate about or they believe in. These changes bring us back to what we believe in and gives us focus on what we have done over the last 20 years, and that is providing services to the nonprofit community and also to our donors in the community.”

To reach John F. Russell, call 970-871-4209, email jrussell@SteamboatPilot.com or follow him on Twitter @Framp1966.


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Steamboat and Routt County make the Steamboat Pilot & Today’s work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.