Your Connection to Local Charities

Your Connection to Local Charities

Sharon Saulmon with Southwest Oklahoma City Library patrons

Photo by Brandon Snider

Throughout the last 50 years, the Oklahoma City Community Foundation’s Charitable Organization Endowment program has enhanced stability and credibility for charities serving Oklahoma. The invested endowment funds provide charities with a stable source of perpetual income, offering annual support for their operating budgets and expanding critical programs for the development of our community. In addition to demonstrating planned long-term stability, an endowment also allows nonprofits to broaden their source of support by offering a way for donors to give complex assets and leave estate gifts to perpetuate their charitable priorities.

One organization that illustrates the impact of endowment on a nonprofit is Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma (FOLIO), which provides resources to strengthen Oklahoma public libraries. Although it’s a small organization, FOLIO is vital to the literacy development of communities throughout our state. A decade ago, FOLIO realized the need for perpetual income to sustain its mission and established the Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma Fund at the Community Foundation.

By promoting gifts to their endowment and regularly participating in the Kirkpatrick Family Fund’s Matching Endowment Grant Program, FOLIO has grown its fund from $8,000 to more than $100,000, generating annual distributions of nearly $5,000 back to the organization.

Our annual Mother’s Day campaign has contributed to the success of our endowment. Through the campaign, we ask our supporters to give a gift in memory of someone who has strengthened their love of reading, such as a parent or grandparent.

- Sharon Saulmon, board chair of FOLIO

Like FOLIO, their Mother’s Day campaign is simple and effective. Gifts received from the campaign help carry out the mission of the organization and support our state’s libraries in perpetuity. It’s a great reminder of how a little bit can go a long way.