Building Local Resilience Through Giving
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Andrea Stafford announces the start of the UGN Give Big campaign. Photo courtesy of Andrea Staffard [/caption]
News by Scott France
“I feel that localizing our resilience is an important move as we reckon with the colliding instabilities of life in our times,” says Crystie Kisler, Director of Nonprofit Services at Jefferson Community Foundation (JCF).
JCF is partnering with the United Good Neighbors’ (UGN) Give Jefferson campaign that kicked off on October 15 and closes on December 31.
Twenty-eight organizations and programs across Jefferson County have been selected as recipients of this year’s fundraising. The actual cuts in program funding experienced by the 28 selected organizations are over $1 million this year.
UGN has set a goal of $450,000 this year, approximately $91,000 more than was raised in last year‘s campaign.
To qualify for the campaign, the organization or program must have experienced budget funding cuts, and it must provide services that meet basic needs in the areas of: housing and shelter, financial assistance, health and wellness, food, security, advocacy, and children and families.
Contributors may select specific organizations to which they would like to donate, or contribute to the UGN General fund. The website is https://www.givejefferson.org.
“When an organization reaches its funding goal, it can no longer accept additional donations,” said Siobhan, Executive Director of Jefferson Community Foundation. “This encourages donors to give to one of the other organizations, we hope.”
For Kisler, “the definition of localizing our resilience is understanding our vulnerabilities and working together as a community and reducing our reliance on externalities, including external funding, though that funding is still welcome and important.”
UGN’s 2025 Slogan: The Need is Now. The Answer is Us!
Give Jefferson funding is existential for some organizations. “If we don’t get this funding, I will call everybody I know and say, ‘Help!’,” said Julia Cochran, lead volunteer for the Winter Welcoming Center.
The Center, in the Pope Marine Building on Water Street, provides a warm resting place for homeless folks who are living at the American Legion homeless shelter across the street. The Center is open from 8:30 am until 12:30 pm, seven days a week, from November 15 until April 15, 2026.
Each of the selected organizations determined how much they needed and informed JCF of that amount. The Winter Welcoming Center requested $10,000, which is more than 40% of its budget.
JCF manages the application process and distributes the funds; however, it is a separate entity from the Give Jefferson/UGN program. Of the roughly 100 funds under the JCF umbrella, the UGN program is the primary funding source for meeting basic needs in the community, according to Kisler.
The Kiwanis Backpacks program requested $9,500, which is approximately 40 percent of its budget. The program provides meals and supplies for children under the poverty line on their weekends during the school year.
As basic services become increasingly strained locally — as well as globally — Kissler sees her role in large part “to identify gaps around which opportunities and synergies are identified and shaped in a strategic direction.” She approaches this local challenge through a lens of how the larger national and global systems — financial, ecological, housing, health, educational — are shifting, and how local assets may be applied to meet these effects.
“These global systems are suspect, so locally we need to build out the models we want,” Kisler said. ”We are here to support nonprofits and changemakers in this community. As our mission statement says, ‘A community where everyone can thrive. ’
“JCF is connecting those dots and is looking at how to avoid redundancies and compound impacts,” Kisler said. “And while we are working on imagining the future, there are people who are hungry, people whose power is out, people who have no diapers for their children. So how do we make sure that there is continuity in those services, especially as funding and streams are reduced?”
Budget cuts are hitting public agencies as well as nonprofit organizations. “Jefferson County Public Health plans to use the funds received from the UGN campaign to shore up our Sexual and Reproductive Health program, which includes our school-based health program,” said Denise Banker, Community Health Division Director.
“These programs are vitally important to providing access to care in our community.”
It’s About More Than Money
Kissler said that she sees another benefit of this campaign as “cultivating a spirit of generosity and bringing attention to an immediate win for people who have this existential angst about what’s happening in the world. This has such a direct impact, and a way to get positive reinforcement about what it is to reduce suffering locally.”
She says that contributing to the community includes many other ways than giving money, including awareness-building, learning about the programs, and volunteering.
As one of the youngest organizations in the Give Jefferson campaign, Nourishing Beloved Community (NBC) is open to all these methods of support.
In a written statement, NBC’s Cendre Hunt and Oceana Sawyer said, “The proceeds from this campaign will allow us to continue buying food to distribute to BIPOC and queer/trans people while giving us the space we need to figure out our next pivot like so many other nonprofit food or organizations who lost government support this year.”
Accompanying this Fall’s Give Jefferson campaign, UGN is conducting a workplace giving program. “We’re inviting local businesses and organizations to engage your teams in giving and connection by joining the 2025 Workplace Giving effort," said Andrea Stafford, who is leading the marketing for both campaigns.
UGN has been raising money for approximately 70 years. This year's goal is $100,000 more than last year’s.
“We have faith in the community,” Kisler said. “It’s always been about neighbors helping neighbors.”
To learn more about the Workplace Giving campaign, go to: GiveJefferson.org/workplaces-toolkit
