A foundation created when St. Luke Hospital merged with St. Elizabeth Healthcare in 2008 will be dissolving and distributing its remaining $8.3 million in funds and assets to 16 different charitable organizations in the region.
The Community Foundation of Northern Kentucky was established with the assets of the former St. Luke Hospital Foundation when St. Luke Hospital became part of St. Elizabeth Healthcare.
CFNKY repurposed its mission to serve the whole community.
It assumed administrative and financial oversight of the Northern Kentucky Children’s Advocacy Center and Women’s Health of Northern Kentucky. It later assumed administration and financial oversight of services formerly offered by Cardinal Hill of Northern Kentucky — Adult Day & Respite Services of Northern Kentucky which now operates as part of Community Services of Northern Kentucky.
As a small foundation with limited investment income, annual draws from its funding supported the Foundation’s operating costs and the financial support of the two organizations under its wing. The CFNKY Board of Directors decided to dissolve the Foundation and donate all funds and assets they owned directly to 16 charitable organizations.
“We are not a huge foundation and we realized the ongoing costs of operating CFNKY were becoming a barrier to fulfilling our mission,” Dr. Air said. “We were not able to directly impact the organizations we wanted to support because we were not generating enough income.
“We decided it was in the best interest of the community to take the remaining Foundation funds and donate these funds directly to these charities. Our existence as an organization doesn’t matter; what matters is the availability of important services in our community that make a direct impact for the lives of the people of Northern Kentucky.”
The foundation will present checks to those 16 organization at a celebration on Thursday to be held at the Metropolitan Club. The recipients are:
· Brighton Center
· Campbell County Historical Society
· Children’s Home of Northern Kentucky
· Community Services of Northern Kentucky
· Covington Ladies Home
· Faith Community Pharmacy
· Family Nurturing Center
· Northern Kentucky Health Department Medical Reserve Corps
· Northern Kentucky Children’s Advocacy Center
· NKU Nursing Scholarships
· St. Elizabeth Foundation
· Success by Six
· Sunrise Children’s Services
· The Point
· Welcome House
· Women’s Crisis Center
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to give back to these 16 deserving organizations, which have consistently supported and provided much-needed services in the Northern Kentucky community,” said Dr. Dorothy Air, chair of the CFNKY Board of Directors. “We hope these impactful gifts will be the lasting legacy of the Community Foundation of Northern Kentucky.”
Each gift given to the 16 organizations provides maximum flexibility to carry out their missions. Because of the experience the CFNKY Board of Directors and CEO Cynthia Williams have had with nonprofits, they recognized that these organizations have different needs — including operating expenses — in carrying out their charitable missions.
“This gift of operational funds from CFNKY will not only help us keep our doors open but it will allow us to make operational improvements that will have a lasting effect on our program and increase the value we bring to the community,” said Tara Leen, executive director of the only charitable pharmacy in Northern Kentucky, Faith Community Pharmacy.
Faith Community Pharmacy provides free medications to uninsured and underinsured residents in need.
“We wanted to make sure each donation was as flexible as possible so these funds could be used for operational costs,” said Williams, who joined the Foundation as its CEO in August 2011. “Operational funds can be used to cover the costs such as rent, payroll, utilities, repairs and other day-to-day expenses. Having an adequate and steady stream of funds without strings attached is the best way to keep a charity’s operations and programs strong and sustainable.”
Operational funds are crucial to nonprofits because they can provide the difference that allows these organizations to continue provide important services when they are faced with unexpected financial situations.
“This extraordinary gift of several years of operations funding that the Community Foundation is providing to Community Services’ Adult Day Care program is evidence of how valuable the Foundation believes our medical model for adult day care is to the community,” said Lisa West, executive director of Community Services of Northern Kentucky.
Dr. Air said the Foundation’s gifts of funds for general operating support allows nonprofits to refocus its efforts from raising funds to improving its programs and responding to the community’s needs.
“Many times people forget what it takes to run these organizations on a day-to-day basis,” Dr. Air said.
When the recipients were chosen…what happened to the veterans? The DAV of Cold Spring, KY is a non-profit organization that operates on donations only. Why do we never remember the veterans except to have them defend us?