We might be able to go faster alone, but we will go Further together.

It’s true.  Whether in sports, music, academic pursuits, or professional endeavors, working with others to make meaningful change in your community delivers far more significant benefits than trying to change things by yourself.  Working with others to make a positive difference in our communities is a principle that has guided me my entire life. 

My belief in this conviction is what led me to create the CORE Foundation almost fifteen years ago. I wanted to help our neighbors in need, and  I wanted to support the excellent work already being done by existing non-profits without creating a new organization offering redundant charitable services.  We started the CORE Foundation with a vision. We wanted to enable and support the goals of others in our community, helping them make a difference in the lives of those around us.  We wanted to support those endeavoring to be the change they want to see by proactively addressing the challenges in our community. This enablement and support are what we focus on at CORE, and we’re grateful to have the support of thousands of members of our CORE Village who share the belief that it’s hard to climb the ladder if you can’t reach the bottom rung.

With many organizations and social causes already in existence, we saw an opportunity and a need to mentor, support, and connect social entrepreneurs within the community.  Social entrepreneurs are individuals or organizations eager, even inspired to make a difference in their communities, but hindered by the many obstacles of creating and managing a non-profit organization.  That’s why the CORE Foundation supports our CORE Cause leaders and their CORE Causes—because we believe that by incubating and mentoring them, they will have a more significant impact on the communities they support than if they tried it alone.  We go further together.

2020 provides us an excellent example of why the social entrepreneurship model works.  We were all disrupted by the events of last March.  Communities, families, and individuals faced new obstacles creating gaps CORE Cause leaders quickly filled. For example:

  • CORE Cause Helping Hungry Kids restructured collection and distribution for food-insecure students now learning online.
  • CORE Cause Yuniverse designed and implemented a student mentoring program to help students through the online learning environment.
  • CORE Cause Essentials for Education created a system to identify and distribute desks for at-home students who needed a more conducive learning environment to participate in school.

These are just a few examples of the many tremendous accomplishments of our CORE Cause leaders in 2020. But these programs are only possible with your support.  As the CORE Foundation enters its 15th year, I’m asking for help from everyone in our CORE Village.  While 2020 was a particularly challenging year, 2021 will present even new and more significant challenges, and we will all need to find ways to support and strengthen our community while COVID-19 continues to impact our lives.

Please take a moment and consider helping be a part of the solution by contributing or volunteering to help us out in 2021.  In celebrating our 15th anniversary, we invite you to join our Founder’s Circle of monthly givers.  Circle members will receive additional benefits like premier seating and recognition at CORE events and a special quarterly communication that outlines the new projects that you’ve helped support.

Your contributions of time and money will have a direct impact on the programs we support.  For details on the efforts I mentioned above or on other CORE Causes making a difference in the community, please visit www.corefoundation.org.

Thank you for all that you’ve done for the CORE Foundation in the past and your continued support for the work ahead of us in the future.

All my best,