Community Foundation of the Ozarks

Downtown Springfield’s Moxie Cinema is a new CFO partner through the Downtown Springfield Community Cinema Fund.

The new structure will allow donors to make tax-deductible contributions to become members of the Moxie. The goal is to create a self-sustaining structure for the Moxie to continue as Springfield’s only full-time theater showing  independent U.S. and foreign films and documentaries.

The Downtown Springfield Community Cinema group purchased the nearly five-year-old Moxie Theater from founders Dan and Nicole Chilton, who had put the theater up for sale to concentrate on new business and family goals.

More information about the sale is included in the  Moxie Downtown Community Cinema Fund News Release.

The Community Foundation is offering its agency partners the opportunity to apply for 10 fully paid scholarships for professional development through the GO LEAD program at Missouri State University.

GO LEAD provides a series of workshops designed to address specific training and professional development issues related to non-profit management.

The scholarships are available  for one of these two workshop series:

• The Nuts & Bolts of Non-Profit Management; or
• Non-Profit Management in the 21st Century

Applications can be submitted online and the application deadline is 5 p.m., Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010.

The program is open to any non-profit leader or manager of an organization that partners with the Community Foundation.

For questions or more information, e-mail Julie Leeth, Executive Vice President, or call (417) 864-6199.

Meramec Regional Community Foundation President Laura Antolak (left) listens to Secretary-Treasurer Richard Cavender, at a recent organizing meeting in St. James.

The Community Foundation of the Ozarks welcomes the Meramec Regional Community Foundation as its 42^nd affiliate.

This represents the CFO’s first collaboration with a planning commission: The Meramec Foundation is a new venture within the Meramec Regional Planning Commission, which serves eight counties in central Missouri – Crawford, Dent, Gasconade, Maries, Osage, Phelps, Pulaski and Washington – and 32 cities within those counties.

The MRPC provides economic development assistance, housing assistance, planning and development expertise, solid-waste management, emergency-management planning, grant writing and administration, small-business loans, transportation planning, and other communication and community-building services.

The newly created Foundation will support community charitable grantmaking within its service area. The Community Foundation’s existing affiliates within this region will continue to operate their own asset-building and grantmaking programs based on their specific priorities.

Meramec Regional Community Foundation President Laura Antolak said the Foundation was a natural outgrowth of the services provided by the regional planning commission.

CFO President Brian Fogle said he expect the existing affiliates within this area to continue doing their important work; the new Foundation will provide a means to expand to other underserved areas that aren’t being reached by existing community foundations.

The organizing board members for the Meramec Regional Community Foundation are: President Laura Antolak; Vice-President Russell Scheulen; and Secretary-Treasurer Richard Cavender. Each county in the Meramec region will have a representative on the MRCF board and appointments are underway.