Page 33 - 2024 April report

BOARD OF DIRECTORS MINUTES (2)
The board would like Bobby to be more demanding of UPS and Scholarship America. At a minimum,
Bobby should communicate what the foundation expects in reports.
The board is comfortable with staff having wide latitude to pay membership dues and make grants to philanthropy-infrastructure organizations (e.g., Exponent Philanthropy). If the dues and grants exceed the current budget (approximately $100,000), the staff should consult the board.
The board does not recommend instituting RFP for HBCUs or any RFP processes at this time. But it signaled that it’s open to the concept if the need/opportunity arises in the future.
2) Mission and Vision Statements
Lowell’s Possible Mission and Vision Statement v3 had been circulated and is attached hereto as Attachment “A”.
Mission Statement
A suggested 4th option would be the current Mission Statement (“Our Foundation exists to serve disadvantaged people by assisting them to obtain education and employment”), minus “and employment”.
There was agreement that the Board does not want flowery language. The Mission Statement should be straight forward, simple and clear.
Discussion points:
• “educational success” vs. “college degree” as that would be open to vocational certificates. The preference was for “college degrees”.
• “support” rather than “help” or “assist”. Consensus was in favor of “support”.
• “students” rather than “people”. Question arose as to whether children from birth to three are students. It was agreed that they are learning and therefore are students.
• “college degree attainment”
• Whether or not to include “preparation for” as well as “obtain”
• Does “focus” point to programs rather than people?
• Don’t want to imply that a person has to be disadvantaged, Indigenous AND have disabilities.
• Two sentences to allow for a brief statement and then further define the three programing groups was suggested. There was concern that it is too easy to separate one sentence from the other and thus lack clarity. There was no consensus on one or two sentences.
• A variation of Option 3 garnered the most support: “Our foundation exists to support students with disabilities, Indigenous students and students with financial need to prepare for and obtain a college degree.” The board was very close to consensus and was agreed that Bobby and Lowell should build on that and craft the language for Board approval at the September meeting.
Vision Statement
This should be a guiding statement for the Grant Program Committee when considering which organizations to partner with.
Education / A Powerful force for change Page 31