Former Whistler resident Deborah O’Mara Matovich has been hired as a consultant to the municipality to establish a Whistler Community Foundation. A community foundation is operated primarily as a non-profit organization which collects and invests endowment funds and makes grants from the earnings of those funds. A community foundation is not a fund-raising foundation like the Whistler/Blackcomb Foundation. Most community foundations’ assets are in real estate, stocks and other investments. Whistler Mayor Hugh O’Reilly said a community foundation could absorb and keep alive other foundations like the Jennifer Jones Bear Foundation, which has met many of its original goals through the Bear Task Force. The community foundation, through its long-term holdings, could keep the Jennifer Jones Foundation name alive. O’Mara Matovich, the executive co-ordinator of the Penticton Foundation, has been hired at a fee of $10,000. A total budget of $20,000 for consultant fees, expenses and other start-up costs has been allocated from the Continuous Improvement fund. The Whistler Community Foundation could be up and running by the fall of 1999. Seed money for the foundation would likely be $50,000 that was raised at a Whistler Night several years ago. The Vancouver Foundation is apparently prepared to match that with a $50,000 grant.
