Parker Foundation President’s Message

January 1, 2012

This has been another interesting year for The Parker Foundation. We have watched the volatile investment markets cause our endowment to fluctuate often, which worries all of us because we are keenly aware that all of the nonprofits are struggling for money. Fortunately, so far, we have not had to decrease our investments in the community and let's hope that continues.

We have decided to go paperless. It became a necessity as we were getting more and more applications and on occasion could barely carry the stack into the meetings. The goals of this endeavor are to save trees, stay up to date with technology, and to make applying to us less onerous. From now on, only one application will be submitted, the applications will be transmitted to all of us electronically and we will read on our iPads. Our talented Robbin Powell has done all of the research for the project and is now our tutor.

We have decided to support all of the collaboratives of San Diego Grantmakers: Workforce, Child Welfare, Coming Home to Stay, Homeless, Veterans, and Education. It is our hope that sharing our expertise and money will strengthen these efforts and that there will be stronger outcomes as a result.

And, we continue to be so proud of all the professional work done by the nonprofits in our region. These have been trying times for all and frankly, I believe, it may get worse as public funding becomes more scarce. We need to continue to strengthen the support systems for the sector. One of the new questions we ask in our application process is "describe your universe;" we hope this will help organizations think about their work and how it "benefits the people of San Diego." That is the mission of The Parker Foundation.

Judy McDonald,
President