Seeing the Need Opportunities To Give Effective Help

We don’t always see the people in our community who need help, or know how best to help.

But John and Joan Butler suggest that working through the Community Foundation is a good way to identify not only those who need help, but also the organizations that can most effectively provide that help.

Back during the Depression, John points out, “If someone came to the door, saying ‘I haven’t had a meal in three days,’ we’d rustle up some food. Today we’re more removed from problems; our society operates differently. But need is still there. It’s our responsibility to be alert to situations that make our neighbors desperate--situations where help is very important.”

Joan notes that when people do see a need, “They respond. They give.” The Community Foundation, she adds, plays an important role: “When there is a local need, the Community Foundation puts that forward, and makes people aware.”

Both John and Joan are active and generous, helping their church and many community organizations. John used to chair the Foundation’s Grants Committee; now he serves on its Board of Directors. He and Joan have also established the Elizabeth Newell Butler Gregory Fund, named for John’s mother, at the Foundation. “She was a very special lady,” Joan says. “With enough love for everybody,” John says. 

The fund is with the Community Foundation, he explains, “because the Foundation has a very high quality, professional staff. When you donate through the Foundation, you get the benefit of that staff—of its experience and its knowledge of where the needs are in the community. Also, in its grant-giving, the Foundation subjects charities to a high level of investigation.”

Joan says, “That’s very comforting; it’s a safety net. People want their contributions to be effective. They know that Community Foundation grants go to well run agencies and organizations where operating costs are kept low, and where funds are used to address real needs.”

John notes that the Foundation has grown steadily since it was established as the Pequot Foundation in 198__; it now has an endowment of some $2__ million. “With its substantial size and its excellent reputation, the Foundation is listened to in the non-profit community and in the donor community,” he says. “People like to give to an institution that’s doing a good job.”

 “Some of us are more fortunate than others,” he says. “That creates an opportunity to help, and that’s a good thing to do--morally, ethically and practically.” The way he views it, the whole community is better, safer, richer in ways beyond money, when people see their neighbors’needs and seize the opportunity to provide real, effective assistance.