Page 46 - Newsletter_Summer_2018

THE HHSAA PLANNED GIVING PROGRAM
The Maine Community Foundation, Through Houlton’s Alums, Can Help the Houlton High School Alumni
Association Reach its $1,000,000 Goal By Jon A. McLaughlin ‘73
Several folks ask, “How does the Houlton High School Alumni Association’s funding work?” We, involved with the Association, simply
take it for granted. But this is a good question for alumnae of HHS. Basically, there are two sources of income for the Association – Annual
Fund Raising and Endowment Giving.
Annual Fund Raising
This is the one that you all have grown to know and love – the annual request for funds from the general alumni database – the ask,
the plead, the bug, if you will! Our goal the past several years, has been to raise around $50,000 each year in the Annual Fund-Raising
Campaign and we usually meet or exceed our goal. There is the Annual Giving Letter that goes out each year, from which most of the
annual fund is derived. The campaign goes from July of each year through June 30th of the following year. The letter goes out early fall.
In mid-winter, several alums get together and volunteer their time, and have a one evening phonathon, calling alumni that have not given
yet to that year’s campaign. With that one evening of calling, the Association will pick up several more thousand dollars of pledges.

The campaign is rounded off with several email exchanges and sometimes additional mailed notices. We know that email addresses change
quite frequently, but we urge you to send any changes to our secretary, Patty Donovan Fitzpatrick ’63 at mslittleton@pioneercable.com
when your address changes. Our phonathon has been diminishing in success each year due to more and more people dropping their land
lines and going entirely to their cell number and we don’t have many of these on file. So, as you can see, email is becoming more and more
important to our needs.

The end-result, of all these collaborative efforts is the approximate $50,000 annual contribution to the HHSAA. Annual funds are used
to pay our secretary’s part-time wages, our only paid employee. In addition, funds are used to help supplement the cost of the newsletters,
which are about $7,000 per issue and other operating expenses. A portion is always used to supplement the annual scholarship presentation,
adding to funds derived from the Endowment earnings. Funds are also used to support special projects at the High School which, over the
years, have included such things as Smart Boards, lockers, Alumni Gymnasium, science lab and chairs for the library.
The HHSAA Endowment Fund
Like all high school and college alumni associations, they could not thrive and meet their ambitions and goals without an endowment fund.
The Houlton High School Alumni Association is no different. Shortly after its inception 20 years ago, the Association embarked on creating
an endowment. Teams were formed with multiple members on each team and they contacted alums that they personally knew to make
contributions to the newly formed endowment. Folks would pledge so many dollars over a period. It was successful, and an endowment was
created.
After a lot of research, the Maine Community Foundation was chosen to make sure that the fledging endowment grew, and that the
Association would reap the benefits, resulting in an income to the organization. This was very fortuitous, because, as you all have heard in
the past, shortly thereafter the Association was “gifted’ with a large estate contribution from Henry White, upon his death and in memory
of his wife and daughter, of approximately $475,000! The move to the MaineCF was the right one.
The initial goal of the Association was to establish a $1,000,000 endowment. 20 years later the endowment is approaching this goal.
Recent figures show it at about $940,000! Of course, the bulk of the endowment is the result of the generous White contribution and its
subsequent earnings, but in addition, alumni keep giving to the endowment on an individual basis and there are several class and family
named programs and annual contributions from the annual appeal that go into making up the total.
So how does the HHSAA get its funds to support the many scholarships it gives out each year? First, the funds are pooled with the other
MaineCF funds which makes a large portfolio to invest. The community foundation manages more than 1,800 funds with a value of
around $530 million so it has the clout to invest in diverse areas and it has a pool of investment advisors from many of the top firms
specializing in foundation investing from around the country. The community foundation helps HHSAA build a perpetual source of
funding.
Each quarter a small percentage of earnings are taken out for administration fees based on the balance from the previous quarter. At year
end, the Association receives income based on 4% of the fund for that year. If investments have performed well for the year, the fund
will have earned substantially more than 4% of the total fund and that windfall will be kept in the endowment with the MaineCF to be
reinvested.
With these earnings and coupled with some additional funds from the Annual Campaign, the HHSAA Board of Directors are able to give
yearly scholarships to deserving graduating seniors. At last count 26 seniors applied to the HHSAA scholarship program for 2018 and all
were recipients of a scholarship.
How can you help this wonderful program? Please think about planned giving to the Association through the Maine Community
Foundation. There are several avenues of giving, many while you are still living and allow you an income for life, while benefiting the
HHSAA. Please do not hesitate to have your estate planner call the Maine Community Foundation and ask to speak with Jennifer Southard
and tell her you want to set up an estate program to ultimately benefit the Houlton High School Alumni Association.
Our first goal of the Association 20 years ago was to reach a million- dollar endowment. Watch for the next issue of the Northstar News this
fall when an exciting announcement will be made about this goal and some new ones!!

www.houltonalumni.com PAGE 46