A community opportunity

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Lilly Endowment is offering the Community Foundation of Jackson County an opportunity to help Hoosiers make an impact in our communities, just in time for the holidays and year-end giving.

The Lilly Endowment GIFT VII program is providing matching dollars on a $2-to-$1 basis to help build what are called community (unrestricted) endowments that generate grants for projects, programs and agencies across Jackson County.

Your gifts and the matching dollars can go into the Jackson County Community Endowment or into an existing named community fund. You can even create your own community fund to earn those match dollars.

What an opportunity. Your gift of $5,000 becomes $15,000. Your gift of $20,000 becomes $60,000. Your gift of … well, you get the picture.

Our board of directors and Lilly Endowment are committed to helping grow these impactful community funds so that through prudent stewardship more money is available to help fund the needs of local projects, local programs and local agencies.

We are excited about the GIFT VII program because of its focus on earning donations and multiplying those dollars with matching funds to finance grants that help our neighbors, friends and family here in Jackson County.

The foundation has funded grants in the community since 1994.

Last year, for instance, community grants provided school supplies for children in Brownstown, Crothersville, Medora and Seymour, funded weekend sack lunches for area school children and others assisted the Jackson County Community Theatre, Reins to Recovery and Jackson County United Way.

Others have financed grants for Child Care Network, Crothersville Historical and Cultural Arts Association, Girls Inc. and the Boys & Girls Club, Main Street programs in Brownstown and Seymour, Southern Indiana Center for the Arts and volunteer fire departments across the county.

Impact grants last year and this year are assisting the fight against poverty and providing match dollars for the historic Joe Jackson Hotel preservation project in Vallonia, the Jackson County Canine Shelter project in Brownstown and the One Chamber streetscape project in Seymour.

Just last month, the Board of Directors approved 16 grants through our fall grant process, including those that will build a walking trail and butterfly garden at Countryside Park in Crothersville, help repave the basketball court at the town park in Medora and help build sidewalks at the Jackson County History Center in Brownstown.

Yet, again, some grant applications were rejected for lack of grant funds.

How can you help make an impact here at home? Your tax-deductible gift to the foundation can be tripled when placed into the Jackson County Community Endowment or another unrestricted fund. And because GIFT VII is spread over three years, you have an option to take advantage of tax deductions for 2018, 2019 and 2020.

You can also create an unrestricted endowment in your own name, or perhaps in the name of a loved, or even your business, to honor and recognize their importance to you for generations to come. Again, your tax-deductible gift can be tripled with the Lilly Endowment matching funds.

What an opportunity.

For information, call me at 812-523-4483.

Jackson County Hearing Aid Fund for School Age Children

Rust Companies Foundation

Adria Ann Waskom Memorial Fund

Aisin Chemical Indiana Charitable Fund

Immanuel United Church of Christ Community Fund

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Dan Davis is president and CEO of the Community Foundation of Jackson County, 107 Community Drive, Seymour, IN 47274. For information about donating opportunities with the foundation, call 812-523-4483 or send an email to president

@cfjacksoncounty.org.

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