Foundation Mission Statement
The Jackson College Foundation was established to support the comprehensive mission of the College by providing the additional resources necessary to ensure success. The Foundation will enhance the College’s image within the community, broaden its base of support, communicate to the public its responsiveness to local needs and provide the College with a measure of excellence for its educational programs and services.
Foundation Goal
The Foundation encourages alumni, friends and businesses to be supportive of the higher education mission on an annual basis. It is important to build long-term friendships, which help individuals feel more involved with the College, to feel a growing sense of ownership of it, as well as its extension centers and auxiliary endeavors.
The goal of the Foundation is to accomplish:
- Support of the College, which will be firmly grounded in need and not want,
- A sense of involvement by alumni, friends, and businesses within the College and its development plans,
- A sense of ownership in the plans among our constituents – so they begin to share and advance their individual ideas and goals,
- The charge of recruiting and enlisting leadership for our fiscal growth,
- The growth of the College as an institution that listens and responds to the community, and
- The people-base which is necessary for long-range development programming.
The Foundation has three areas of financial need: operational, capital and endowment. Operational, or unrestricted funds, are utilized everyday to address the maintenance of our office, grants, postage and printing. Unrestricted funds also allow the Foundation to designate revenue over expense to the investment portfolio or transfer assets into the College for scholarships and programs.
Capital funds involve changes in the institution’s physical plant such as renovation, construction and major acquisitions. These needs occur periodically and the College cannot always depend upon its major sources of income (government: state, local and federal; and tuition), a millage or its current funds to support these needs.
The purpose of an endowment may be to establish a permanent scholarship fund, to benefit the operation of the College, or support a vital program.
Our History
At the direction of the Board of Trustees of the College in 1983, an organizational meeting for the Foundation commenced. Sensing future trends in the areas of development and community support, the Board determined that an institutional foundation, whose role was to provide assistance only to the College, would be beneficial throughout the future. The Foundation maintains a tax-exempt status, under the federal code 501 (c)(3), and is viewed as an independent corporation.
Since its inception, the Foundation, from its own assets and management of the College’s loaned funds, has offered thousands of dollars in support to JC, primarily in grants, programs and scholarships.
The Foundation Board of Directors is composed of 19 representatives of the Jackson, Hillsdale and Lenawee communities. These directors represent the entire three counties which the College directly serves through extended campuses. The Board meets quarterly and has five standing committees, which focus upon the executive, finance, development, grants/scholarships, and membership endeavors.