Let's Talk about Milestones

The Community Foundation Board and Staff complete a fun exercise every year at our Annual Board Retreat. We spend a few minutes looking back on our prior year and choose the events, activities, and achievements that stand out as milestones. We recognize our milestones are subjective, based on our perceptions of the year.  

We listed five items as 2020 Milestones:

• Continued to operate and provide support to the community throughout the pandemic
• Opened of and granted more than $300,000 from the Covid-19 Relief Fund
• Village on Sage Street reached full capacity
• Created the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force
• Approved our name change to Community Foundation of Northern Nevada

This milestones list tells the story of our evolution and highlights achievements by our community and its generous people. 

As I thought about writing this column, I became curious about what I had written about exactly ten years ago. The article of June 24, 2011, strangely enough, was about a significant milestone in my career. June is my anniversary month at the Community Foundation, and in it, I wrote about joking with Margaret Stewart that my wife always tells me that life is not a race, and I counter, “Yes, it is.” Margaret asked, “Did I want to get to the finish line first (meaning death)?” To which I replied, in my mind racing through life is getting the most done with the time we have.

Ten years with an organization is a career milestone, but we reach more noteworthy milestones in our lives. I spend a lot of time with people who are hitting certain milestones, and for many, those become calls to action. They turn their attention to simplifying their assets, doing more travel, spending more time with family, making estate plans, and donating charitable gifts. Through the Community Foundation, we can provide great assistance to donors and their professional advisors in helping to craft, and facilitate, those gift arrangements. We currently work with between 15 and 25 families a year on legacy gift plans, which are gift arrangements made through a person’s will or trust. As Margaret noted, sometimes, we think of death as the final milestone. Still, for more than a hundred families in our community, their milestones will continue through their impact and benefit to the charities and the community they love.

Check out the Community Foundation’s milestone list and see how far we’ve come. We will indeed be here forever and are an excellent fit for anyone thinking about how to best steward their charitable legacy.

Please give me a call to discuss your charitable plans and how the Community Foundation can help you reach your philanthropic goals and create a personal milestone. 

Chris Askin, President / CEO
 775-333-5499

 Connecting people who care with causes that matter