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Having both reserves and endowment gives me as the Executive Director/CEO some comfort and freedman to be innovative and timely in responding to needs. For example at the beginning of Covid when everyone needed to take their temperature, we distributed free “talking” thermometers to hundreds of our blind participants. We still distribute free masks and test kits. We eventually qualified for two PPP loans totally $3 million which kept us whole and were forgiven. Interesting that during the early years of Covid we lost more than 35% of our government income because we could not provide in home training services and one of our biggest contracts is outcome based. No outcome (achievement of goals) no payment. However our foundation funders were incredibly generous and flexible including changing program grants to general operations. It is the mix of funding, the 95 year history of VISIONS, the active and talented Board and an incredible staff that keeps us successful. We saluted our staff by giving everyone an extra day of pay that remained working at VISIONS throughout the pandemic. The Board recommended some type of recognition and the executive team suggested the day of pay rather than an extra day off since many of the staff don’t use all their paid time off.
Our bequests often come directly from the will of our Board, members when they die, a handful of our blind participants that have resources or their family members, and friends of our Board members. We have no staff dedicated to planned giving.