2017 Summary - Mel douglass fund

Scholarships
  • Maggie Mayer won the $8,000 Mel Douglass Scholarship.  An accomplished filmmaker, she has received national and local awards for her community service films on teen philanthropy, anti-bullying, and other topics.  Maggie is now a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh.
  • Ursula Buba, Andrew Klabnick, Jack Manges, and Allison Murray earned $1,000 honorable mention scholarships. 
  • During our ten years of operating the fund, your contributions have supported 51 Edgewood students (ten Mel Douglass Scholarship winners plus 41 honorable mention winners) who enrolled in 30 colleges and universities located in 13 states and Washington DC. 
 
Contributions
  • Contributions to the fund ranged up to $6,000.  Your contributions made 2017 our best fundraising year to date. 
  • Our donor base continues to be a healthy blend of long time and newer contributors.  Since 2008, over 170 individuals, families, or organizations have contributed.  We are proud to celebrate all who have honored Mel over the years and we are also proud to recognize you on the back of this page.
  • The annual Mel Douglass Memorial Golf event on August 5th was another rousing success and a memorable day of fellowship.  Gregg Bowers and Nick Kefalos once again deserve recognition and tremendous thanks for their leadership of this event.  Thanks as always for a sensational day, guys!  Our 2018 golf event will take place on August 4th.   Please save the date…more information to follow.
  • As always, 100% of your contributions were directed to current or future scholarships.  All expenses to operate the fund (tax filings, web design and maintenance, graphics, postage, etc.) are personally paid by our Board of Directors.
 
Operations
  • We hosted our first-ever event to celebrate and thank our donors.  The party, which took place Friday August 4th at the Roman Bistro in Forest Hills, drew over 60 of you and was a major success.  (The party was also personally sponsored by our Board of Directors.)
  • After benchmarking some other nonprofits, we upgraded our website by adding several features, including statements of the fund’s vision, mission, and values and a Board of Directors section.     
  • We continued to align all of our activities to build an endowment that is self-sustaining in perpetuity to make sure Mel’s tremendous legacy endures and continues to benefit young people in Edgewood.  We balanced short-term and long-term financial objectives again in 2017:
    • Short-term:  We financially supported all of the scholarships awarded and met all of our other obligations to operate the fund.
    • Long-term:  We set aside a portion of your contributions to continue building a sustaining endowment.  Thanks to your generosity, the December 31 endowment balance grew for the tenth straight year.