Our Mission

The Seeley Lake Community Foundation engages philanthropy, provides leadership, and enhances the quality of life and economic vitality of the Seeley Lake area.

What is the Seeley Lake Community Foundation?

The Seeley Lake Community Foundation gathers and grows resources to help Seeley Lake, MT. We aim to strengthen Seeley Lake while keeping it special!

We’re a locally driven and locally supported 501c3 nonprofit that strives to be a community resource and a catalyst for innovative approaches to improving the quality of life for this small, rural, unincorporated area. The SLCF also provides leadership in encouraging philanthropy within the community and building permanent resources that will contribute to the vitality of this region for years to come.

We were proud to be awarded Outstanding Foundation for Philanthropy Day 2021!

What does the SLCF do?

Each year, we:

• give grants to nonprofits for local projects

• offer the Change Your Pace Challenge, a community fundraiser encouraging giving to local groups

• coordinate I Ride, a medical appointment van shuttle, supplying a critical unmet need for many of Seeley Lake’s seniors and people with disabilities

• run the Seeley Lake Sunday Market during summer months

• offer space for classes, meetings, and events at the Foundation Building

• host glass recycling events that raise money for our local schools

• provide leadership grants to collaborate and facilitate larger-scale innovative efforts

• respond to unanticipated needs, and much more.

How does the community benefit?

• Nonprofits benefit from having a stable local funding source for community projects, as well as a technical resource to help problem-solve nonprofit issues and questions.

• Residents benefit from services like a medical van appointment shuttle, an electric vehicle charging station, community socializing opportunities at the Seeley Lake Sunday Market, and monthly tech support events.

• The community benefits by having an increase in quality of life, more community amenities, and on-the-ground staff who are able to help elevate this community's rural voice and connect the dots to bring funding and resources into unincorporated Seeley Lake.

How is the Seeley Lake Community Foundation different from other nonprofit organizations?

A major function of the Seeley Lake Community Foundation is to operate as a savings account for the entire community’s benefit.

We collect charitable gifts of cash, assets, and property, and pool these gifts for the future betterment of our community. Some of these funds are put into a permanently restricted endowment fund which earns interest. We distribute this interest income as grants to local charitable or public organizations each year, but the ‘principal’ of the endowment is maintained in perpetuity, generating income for generations to come to meet a wide range of community interests and needs. The SLCF works with the Montana Community Foundation to invest and administer these endowment funds.

As a tax-exempt public charity, we are a trusted steward of local charitable assets, with the ability to accept donations and make grants to effective nonprofits. We can help donors create permanent charitable funds to help our community meet the challenges of changing times.

Learn more about Community Foundations and how they’re different from most 501c3 nonprofits!

What organizations do we support?

Each January, the SLCF Community Grants program gives out small grants to local organizations for projects in arts & culture, community & economic development, basic human needs, education, and natural resources & conservation. Visit our Grantmaking Impact page to explore highlights of what these grants have helped accomplish in Seeley Lake during our first 20 years.

Each June, the Change Your Pace Challenge is a community-wide fundraiser for local nonprofits. Since 2017, CYP has raised over $500,000 for local nonprofits! The SLCF raises money for the CYP Match Fund to incentivize giving to participating groups.

We also partner with a variety of local and regional groups as we act as a community resource to make great things happen in Seeley Lake! We’re often called upon to serve as a clearinghouse for knowledge of community needs and opportunities for this small unincorporated rural community. For example, we:

• Helped local businesses apply for COVID-19 relief grants, securing over $100,000 in 2020

• Brought over $100,000 to Montana over the next decade by helping folks fill out the Census in 2020

• Partnered with the Missoula City-County Health Department to provide a space for their free COVID testing mobile unit from 2020-2022.

• Offer classes and trainings in the West Wing of the Foundation Building for local nonprofit leaders and community members

• Act as a technical resource for the oh-so-many “nonprofity” questions and situations that arise for our small local groups

• Help connect people interested in getting involved with opportunities around town to make a difference

• and more!

We’re excited to be a leader in facilitating innovative projects for this incredible place! To keep up to date with all that’s going on at the SLCF, sign up to receive our e-newsletters.

Who are our donors and supporters?

Our donors are the individuals, families, and businesses who love the Seeley Lake area! Donors range from people of modest means to those with substantial financial resources, but all share a love of this special place, nestled between exquisite mountains and along a string of incredible lakes.

Our donors are people who wish to make a difference in the lives of others and support their local community. They recognize that an organization like a Community Foundation can be an incredible mechanism to transform their dollars into community-wide impact, especially in a small, unincorporated rural community like ours.

We typically have at least 50 volunteers help support the SLCF each year, from serving as drivers for I Ride, to helping solve household tech questions for Coffee and Computers, to helping with the banquet - our biggest fundraiser of the year, held on the 2nd Sunday in August - to serving on our board of directors, to helping with mailings and back-end office support, and more.

Will you contribute to the mission of the Seeley Lake Community Foundation? You can donate here, you can sign up to receive our e-newsletters here, or you can reach out to us here. We typically mail two 4-page color newsletters to our donors each year, as well as several more one-page Quick Reports, on what their donations have been accomplishing. Our e-newsletter goes out anywhere from once every month to a couple times a week, sharing info on upcoming deadlines, exciting accomplishments, fun stories, calls for volunteers, and more.

Your support makes important local projects get done in this special place, year after year. Your gift makes good things happen for the Seeley Lake area!

Our Values

These three values define our promise to the Seeley Lake community:

Collaboration and Cooperation
We appreciate the power of partnerships with organizations and individuals to create solutions that improve our community.

Leadership
We seek to provide leadership in our community by developing innovative approaches to solving community issues and by encouraging other groups to support our efforts.

Ethics
We will always carry out our mission with honesty, transparency and integrity.  We will protect donor intent and identity and always treat applicants and recipients with respect.

Our bylaws serve as the guiding document of the Seeley Lake Community Foundation. SLCF has established policies to ensure federal requirements for governing a charitable non-profit organization, including a conflict of interest policy are met.

Our history

The Seeley Lake Community Foundation was founded in 2000 by a handful of local residents who wanted to give back to their community. What started from a single, $250 donation has now grown into an endowment of more than half a million dollars, dedicated to the community of Seeley Lake.

A handful of community leaders, including three local small business owners, an economist, a teacher and the manager of the sawmill came together with an idea that was both simple and audacious: create a community foundation that would attract and invest funds in improving the quality of life in Seeley Lake, Montana.

See our Grantmaking Impact page for highlights from the first 20 years of the SLCF Community Grant program. See our Leadership Projects page for more information on projects for Seeley Lake we’ve helped spearhead over the last 20 years! Read this great article 20 year lookback article by the Seeley-Swan Pathfinder: “Building a legacy of service and philanthropy”, January 7, 2021.

A group of community members sent in a check for $250 to form the Seeley Lake Community Foundation, with the goal of raising a permanent endowment that can be used to fund community projects in future years. Founding board members: Seated are Larry Marx, Stan Nicholson, Anita Richards, Mark Williams. Standing are Mary Ann Morin, John Hebnes, and Sally Johnson. Photo credit: Seeley-Swan Pathfinder