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Ways to Donate

Annual Fund

Each year we ask businesses and friends to support the work we do every day matching Bigs and Littles. Look for our newsletters and Annual Report for opportunities to support us through annual giving. Any amount accepted. It costs about $85 per month to support each match.

We currently have three Federal grants to serve children at risk as well as specific children who have an incarcerated parent. These grants require us to generate significant matching funds. You can help us greatly through a gift to our Annual Fund.

Community Leadership Circle

We offer all donors of $1,000 or more annually a seat on our Leadership Council. We need your advice as we work to grow the number of children served by 2012 an aggressive 30%. Why? Well, the demand from parents and schools is multiplying as the word gets out about the outcomes we achieve… $1,000 and up.

Match Scholarships

Each match we make has a cost to us. We look to you to help us finance that match. In many ways, funding is the major constraint to growth in the number of children we are able to mentor… $1,000 per match annually.

Recently, we opened up our program to teen mothers. We already mentor their younger siblings in many cases. We have found a whole new group of volunteers who like to provide teen moms with a personal support system through their effective mentoring. Our thanks to David & Elizabeth Snoeyenbos for providing seed money…$1,200 per match annually.

Richard & Marilyn Dechert Fund for Big Brothers Big Sisters:

The fund was established in mid-2009 to provide long-term stability for our Macon County office. The fund is managed by the Community Foundation of Decatur/Macon County. As of December 2010 the fund reached our intermediate goal of $50,000.

United Way now requires all agencies seeking United Way funding to address the issue of reserve funds. Our goal is to grow this fund to six figures and then begin to use part of the earnings to supplement our annual budgets. Principal remains invested for the future… $100 and up. This is a great way to help if you have a large gift in mind.

Wish List

Technology:

Phone Systems: Our phone systems are dead ended at our offices in Bloomington, Champaign and Decatur. With our planned growth in these offices, flexible, new phone systems are necessary… $35,000

Laptops: Our case managers have to go back to their offices to enter interview notes from their case visits with Bigs and Littles as well as their notes from visits with family members and school officials. Laptops for our 10 case managers would greatly improve productivity… $9,000 with software.

Cell Phones and Cellular Service: On the way to the virtual office, which could save us valuable rent dollars, cell phone service with voice and data is vital for everyone to be on the same page… $1,200-1,400 per month.

Building Fund:

We pay over $1500 per month in rent for our offices. Much of this could be eliminated with the right building in the right place. We wouldn’t expect to save money right away, but we could build equity as we settled into our own place. There is some productivity savings here as well… Commercial or residential buildings in or near downtowns.

Scholarships For Littles

We strive to keep a caring adult in a child’s life through high school. When we are successful as we usually are, that Little then has the choice of a good job or a college education. Often, even with financial aid packages, college is not affordable. Your scholarship funds can be the difference between going to college or not… $10,000-$30,000 annually.

Community Foundation of East Central Illinois:

As we grow in Champaign and Ford County, we would like to create an endowment to help support our efforts. We have the unique situation in Champaign-Urbana where many students enjoy volunteering as Bigs. This is the generation, which has grown up believing in community service and many college students have experienced ‘service learning’ since grade school. These students are great Big Brothers and Big Sisters, but they do tax our office as we strive to serve them and their Littles. An endowment would allow us to continue to make the most of this volunteer pool… $10,000 - $50,000.