Fall Bulletin 2006 Vol. 22, No.3

Articles:

Introduction
The Gulf: One Year Later
Plenty Belize GATE Program
News from Plenty Austin (includes an update on Central American projects)
Kids to the Country
Growing Plenty

GROWING PLENTY

At this year’s Annual Plenty Meeting in July Plenty’s Board of Directors decided we need to put more time, attention and resources into organizational strengthening so that Plenty can be better prepared to meet its current long-term commitments as well as the challenges of the future. Plenty has always operated with a small staff. Currently the Executive Director is the only full-time staff person and some of core staff are volunteers. Others work part-time. Some of us have been with Plenty since the beginning, over 30 years now, and just in the last four years three of our long-time Board members passed away, all still in their 50s. Karen Flaherty, Thomas Wartinger and Kathryn Hutchens, each one a Plenty founding member, each one a creator of their own special projects, each one a visionary and inspiration. Losing them has affected us greatly. Additionally, we have lost many long-time supporters, people who were like family to us. We’re very aware of the necessity of passing the torch to the next generation and we want that torch to be burning brightly. Plenty is incredibly blessed with a faithful, committed and generous donor base that has never been larger than a couple thousand folks who year in and year out keep all our projects active and steadily growing. Yet, limited resources mean the pace of growth is slow and when we are asked to do more, too often we have to say, “No, sorry, our plate is full.”

We have decided to hire a full-time “Development Director” to focus on expanding our grassroots-funding base and attract more foundation grants for projects. We’ve never had a Development Director. Fundraising is a role we have always shared among our staff as best we can, and while we don’t expect this to be a magic bullet, we think it will help us grow and be stronger. We’re scrambling a little to figure out how we’re going to fund this position, even at the level of an extremely modest Plenty salary, but here’s an idea for your consideration: if half of our donors were to give one time 20 percent more on top of their usual yearly donations, (or all of our donors gave 10% more, or some combination thereof) we’d have it covered and after one year, the Development Director would have expanded our income and donor base to where it would no longer be a problem. Just an idea.