Corry Community Foundation elects Goodsel chair

The Corry Community Foundation officially began in 2000 when 16 local families stepped forward with $500 donations. Since then, the foundation has amassed more than $13 million in individual and agency endowments.

At their annual meeting in December 2023, the board of the Corry Community Foundation elected officers for 2024.

Pat Goodsel was elected to the chairperson position after serving as vice chair for the past year. Scott Fogle was elected vice chair, Marne Roche was elected secretary and Jill Gibson was elected treasurer. Jones on HOF ballot

Goodsel joined CCF in 2016 as part of a board expansion. She served as Chair of the grant making committee and assisted with CCF’s strategic review, helping to create and define committees and internal policies and procedures.

Goodsel is also a member of Impact Corry, is an assistant coach for the Corry girls varsity volleyball team and the head coach of the middle school and recreational volleyball teams.

“We are thrilled that someone with the depth of knowledge about CCF and community needs will be leading our efforts to better serve the Corry region,” said Kimberly Hawkes, CCF board director. “Pat drives learning about community needs and other foundations and leveraging assets and efforts to improve the Corry region. She will further enhance CCF’s impact both for today and tomorrow.”

Previously, Bill Nichols held the chairperson position for 13 years.

A press release from CCF stated, “Nichols was instrumental in CCF creating a relationship with the city. He helped facilitate the Weir Report in 2012 and helped keep an open conversation with civic leaders to determine how CCF could make a greater impact in our community. Bill remains an active board member and a liaison to the Corry Neighborhood Initiative. Under his leadership, CCF underwent a strategic review and updated its philanthropic focus to health, safety and housing, economic wellbeing, arts, culture and lifelong learning, environment and inclusion.”

At CCF, Goodsel will continue to build awareness of the organization’s role as a place where individuals, nonprofit agencies, and other funders can create lasting change through charitable endowments. Currently, CCF manages 67 funds, 27 of which are scholarship-oriented funds, for the benefit of the Corry region, and granted up to $417,966 in 2023 to local nonprofit organizations.

Goodsel said the foundation is planning more community engagement.

“We’re trying to become more active and engaged,” Goodsel explained. “We’ve developed committees, and each committee has just started to meet. We are hoping to meet more often and potentially be more proactive in what we’re doing.”

Roche agreed with Goodsel.

“We’re working on documents that outline each committee’s responsibilities, giving them goals to work toward and looking for their input,” Roche said.

Roche also noted that the foundation is surveying how the strategic plan is working.

“We did strategic planning over the last year, and we’re looking at what the recommendations were and to improve on those,” Roche said.

Gibson added that they look forward to, “Seeing how what we chose in the strategic plan is working for Corry.”

Although there is not currently a metric to evaluate how the foundation’s investments are impacting the community, Goodsel is looking forward to seeing defined outcomes.

“We want to dig a little deeper into what they [organizations] are doing and who it is benefitting, how many people are impacted and how we measure that,” Goodsel said. “We have a lot of great nonprofits in our community, and we are looking forward to supporting them, working with them and doing all we can to move our city forward and to continue supporting our citizens.”

Grants are made to organizations recognized as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. CCF works to connect donors to their favorite causes, to create change for good, for Corry, forever.

The foundation issues two types of grants: standard and mini. Standard grants are grant requests over $3,500 awarded biannually in April and October with deadlines of March 1 and Sept. 1. Mini grants are grant requests $3,500 or less awarded bimonthly beginning in February. Grant deadlines are the first business day in January, March, May, July, September and November.

Grant application requests may be made by calling 814-664-3884, extension 6, or by emailing admin@corrycommunityfoundation.org.

For more information or to donate to specific local funds, visit corrycommunityfoundation.org.