May 10, 2023 • 28 mins
Holly Graff and Richard Smith join us in this episode to talk about the work of the Bowen Island Community Foundation and some of the things that got us here, some great ideas from our neighbors that benefit everyone on the island, and that it's time again for Vital Conversations.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Bown Island Podcast.I'm Don Schaeffer and today we're speaking with
Holly Graff and Richard Smith about theBowen Island Community Foundation. Holly is now
the past chair of the Foundation andRichard is the Vital Conversations Committee chair.
If you don't know much about theBowen Island Foundation, it's a nonprofit organization
that aims to strengthen the Bowen Islandcommunity by supporting local projects and organizations.
(00:23):
The Foundation's current focus includes arts andculture, education, environment, health and
social services, and the Foundation raisesfunds through donations, fundraising events, and
investment income. I was looking overyour website and there's quite a roster of
familiar names and the legacy of projects. I wonder if you could tell us
a little bit about the foundation,How has it evolved over the years,
(00:46):
and what are some of the organization'smost significant achievements and challenges to date.
The Bone Island Community Foundation was startedin two thousand and one by a group
of Islanders who really wanted to finda way to give back to Bowen.
The chair at the time was Brucegrayl who's still on island and saw him
(01:07):
last Friday night. At our annualmeeting, and the idea was that,
you know, as far as charitableorganizations go, there are a lot of
really great causes and people wanted tosort of do something that would give back
to a geographic region, not justone particular cause, but the cause of
(01:27):
the community in general, So anythingrelated to our community. And I'm not
sure how familiar you are with CommunityFoundations of Canada, but it's almost two
hundred community foundations across Canada. Someof the big names are the Vancouver Foundation,
which is one of the largest,you know, Winnipeg Foundation. You
(01:51):
know, basically all the major metropolitanareas have a Community Foundation of Canada,
and then there's a lot of littleones around and we're one of the one
of the little ones and we benefitfrom Community Foundations of Canada because their mandate
is envisioning a future where everyone belongsand they're very much about not just sort
(02:17):
of funding causes, but being sortof leaders in the community as to sort
of anticipating what the future will bein those communities and how can we put
resources towards those issues, resources meaningfunding, but also volunteer time. How
can we bring causes to the attentionof the community and inspire people quite frankly,
(02:43):
to become involved. So you know, we didn't create the Bowhen Island
Community Foundation, Richard or I orany of the board members. You know,
we're just following in the template ofcommunity foundations of Canada. We have
a very close working relationship with theVancouver Foundation. They hold all of our
endowed funds, that's our investment investmentaccount and they've got over a billion dollars
(03:07):
of assets under management that they invest. So their money managers, which are
arguably some of the best in thecountry, look after the donations that people
on Bow and give, and thatinvestment money is then distributed back into the
community through grants and scholarships and bursariesevery year. So we're very fortunate to
(03:30):
have them managing our money. Wealso have a relationship with the Sea to
Sky Community Foundation, so that includesthe Westband Foundation, Whistler, Squamish,
Seashelt and I'm forgetting one. Butso we work collaboratively with those foundations because
(03:53):
we have this region in common andtherefore some of the same community issues.
So it's a very rewarding organization andas you can kind of see by past
directors and board members, and volunteers. It's sort of a great roster of
community folks who have joined and givenup their time and talents over the past
(04:16):
twenty years now. So I guessthat leads me to my next question,
which is why both of you dothis work. You've both got careers,
you're very busy. Where do youfind the time to volunteer and why do
you do it? Richard Well,I enjoy giving back to the community in
small ways and big ways. Actually, you know, my career as a
(04:38):
professor, one of the things we'rejudged on is service. Generally that's thought
of as academic service, you know, reviewing articles and stuff like that,
but really they're very understanding about communityservices service too, and I feel that
service is important just for your life. So I fitted into my life the
(05:00):
Community Foundation. You know, wehave our meetings in the evening, do
things on weekends, so it doesn'treally interfere with your kind of if you
have a Monday Friday life. Andthen of course the zoom and the pandemic
have made even more flexibility in people'slives, so I think we have the
opportunity to make spaces and at leastfor me, it's it's very rewarding.
(05:24):
That's one of the great things aboutthis community Foundation or this board. It's
very action oriented. So it's notjust a bunch of sort of meetings and
then nothing else. It's meetings decideon what to do, and then doing
it. And that's kind of funto be on a board that has action
as part of its mandate. Howabout you, Holly, Well, quite
(05:45):
honestly, what called to me wassomebody asked me to volunteer in twenty fourteen
at the first Vital Conversations event,and that was they asked me to be
a scribe at the event. Itwas sort of a last minute thing.
Somebody had dropped out and they neededsomebody and it was a Saturday morning,
and I thought, you know,I could do that for a couple of
hours and they were offering coffee andcroissants. So did that and out of
(06:11):
that conversation at Vital Conversations, oneof the priorities, well there were a
number, there were seven priorities thatcame out of that discussion that year.
A couple of them were civic prideand gathering spaces for all And at around
this time, this was, youknow, right after the National Park debate,
(06:33):
Another priority was civil discourse, andin twenty seventeen, civil discourse didn't
become a didn't come out of thatvital conversation event. Other things did.
But in twenty fourteen, when wewere talking about civic pride and gathering spaces
(06:54):
for all, one of the thingsgoing on in the community was a small
little thing, and that was thesection between the cenotaph and the ferry.
The sewer line was going in andit was going to be widened and paved
over, and I thought, youknow what the entrance to Bowen Island.
(07:15):
You know, I've lived here fortwenty years. It just sort of was
sort of a kind of a letdown, quite honestly. It was very industrial.
It was a BC faery thing withgravel and asphalt and that was it.
And I thought, it's a shameto sort of widen that asphalt and
do that. We're a rural community. Let's do something that is sort of
(07:36):
like our welcome doormat when we comehome and when we have people come to
visit. So I thought, well, let's plant some things. I'm not
a gardener. I mean, Iloved a garden, but that's not my
area of expertise. But the opportunityto get a grant from the community Foundation
(07:58):
was like, Okay, well Ican get a grant and I can ask
other people to be involved. SoI asked a landscape architect and a garden
designer and had geotech engineers also stoneworks. They volunteered their time putting the
labor and so it was a collaborativeproject. And so I obviously fell in
(08:22):
love with the Bone Island Community Foundationbecause it allowed me to sort of see
sort of a vision for something thatI thought not just could be improved,
but it should be improved. Andit was only going to be improved if
I got involved, or if Idid something I couldn't just complain about it.
(08:43):
So yeah, that's how I gotstarted. And then after that project
ended, got invited to be onthe board and just saw all the different
projects that came forward and the opportunityunity to sort of invest in the community
in a way that would continue forgenerations with our investment income, that there
(09:09):
would be the ability to provide fundsforever for projects and charitable organizations. On
Bowen, what a fun story.I was struck by your comment that vital
conversations happened during the National Park discussion, and it's coming up again as we
(09:30):
talk about kpe Archie curtis coincidental.I don't think it's coincidental because it's a
facilitated discussion and it pretty much startswith what makes Bowen special and what does
Bowen do well? So how oftendo you have vital conversations? We try
and do it every three or soyears. However, the pandemic put a
(09:54):
little wrench in that, so itis now five years since the two only
seventeen vital conversations. But this ishow we decide what to grant is from
the priorities that come out of thatvital conversations event that the community identifies as
priorities for the next handful of years. You know, where should we focus
(10:18):
our resources because we don't actually doprojects ourselves, but we hope to encourage
people to come up with you know, we call it a good idea and
apply for funding for that good idea. And the good idea can be something
small like a garden, or itcan be something like the health center,
(10:41):
which we've provided a number of differentgrants towards, you know, everything from
small set of grassroots kinds of thingsto institutions that we hope will benefit the
island for generations to come. Itsounds like a great opportunity for little self
reflection and to think about the futureand what we want to become. Richard,
is this your first time as thechair and have you been involved with
(11:05):
Vital Conversation as before? Well,certainly my first time as the chair,
but I did, I think attendthe twenty seventeen one. It's a bit
foggy in my memory. I certainlywasn't actively involved. I was just sort
of a person in the community whois at a roundtable, and so it's
I think it's kind of interesting,especially when you distinguish between our Vital Conversations
(11:28):
and the larger project which community foundationsacross Canada engage in. Something called Vital
Signs is pretty much driven by statisticsand surveys and you know, statistics,
canon, all that sort of stuff. So it's kind of a data crunching
activity and ours is distinct from that. Partly because bon On so small,
we don't really have any statistical significancein big surveys like the census, but
(11:54):
also because we wanted to have thatkind of conversation. I think It's also
really remarkable in a way that thepriorities for the foundation are not set by
the board members, you know,the eight or ten of us or whatever
sitting around and deciding on the priorities. We engage deeply with the community.
And even there it's not so mucha you know, everybody put up their
(12:15):
hand and pick something. It's aconversation and it's facilitated and it gets down
to you know, why is thisan issue or you know, why should
we what should we prioritize and why? And I think it isn't. Yeah,
sometimes it's sticking points or friction,but it's also opportunities, you know,
things like seniors, opportunities for children, opportunities, you know, living
(12:37):
spaces, all that sort of stuff. So those things come out of the
conversation and they become our priorities asa foundation for three to five years.
So I know, Vital Conversations isbeginning again. Can you talk more about
how to get involved and what willhappen. Yeah, there's two ways people
can get involved. Right now,there's U and if you go to our
website, Owenfoundation dot com, there'sa you can see Vital Conversations as a
(13:01):
menu item, and you can readabout the past ones and you can participate
in an online reflection opportunity basically justa web form that you can participate in.
And then we're going to have alive event on June three, all
day at Keith's Hill Chapel. Peoplewill be invited to participate and it's the
kind of thing where you're sitting atround tables. It's a facilitated discussion.
(13:22):
There will be scribes and table facilitatorsas well as a main facilitator. It's
not quite an all day event,but I think ten to two or something.
And so people are interested in that, they could contact us through our
web page say I'd like to bepart of that. We can't possibly accommodate
everybody on the island, but we'retrying really hard to have a diverse group
(13:43):
of people and not just the usualfolks. And I think you know,
notably, there's no politicians present wherethey have other opportunities, and it's not
a place where you know, aninterest group comes and makes a presentation and
says this is what we think isthe prior. Rather, it's a group
of citizens who come together and talkabout what all of them think is a
(14:05):
priority, we're priorities more likely,And I'd like to add that we do
try and make sure because we haveroom for sixty sort of participants and then
ten table facilitators and ten scribes,we basically try and identify fifty five percent
of that audience and invite people tomake sure that we've got as diverse a
(14:31):
representation of our island as possible.And then forty five percent is a random
draw so people can put their nameinto attend, and of course we reserve
the right to not allow, likeRichard said, you know, our elected
officials thing, because we want thisto be not only a safe space,
but we want it to be acollaborative space where we have seniors, where
(14:56):
we have youth. You know,we do have youth who've been invited and
said they're going to come. Wewant young families, we want newcomers,
we want old timers, we wantpeople from different backgrounds, we want people
who commute, we want people whowork from home on the island. And
so we've done sort of a month'slong sort of process of trying to identify
(15:20):
those folks and who would be athoughtful contributor to those discussions, because right
now We've got a major issue thatis taking up a lot of public discourse,
and it's important issue. This venueis not the place for that particular
issue. However, the issues aroundthat will come up because we are talking
(15:43):
about our community. In the pasttwo Vital Conversations, one thing that came
up both times was the environment.I'm sure that will come up this time.
That's related to the park and camping. Affordable housing was one that came
up in twenty seven. Obviously that'srelated to the discussion that is going on
right now with the park proposal.Is people are concerned about liveability and the
(16:11):
ability to afford housing in the futurehere on Bowen. So they are issues
that touch on what is the hotbutton topic right now, but it's not
related to just one particular issue.I was delighted when I learned about Vital
Conversations and thought, how timely.If we've ever been polarized, your divisive,
(16:32):
it's now. So this is agreat body of work. It's really
important. Yeah, the Community Foundation, of course can't take on the entire
burden of keeping the island happy andcohesive, but I think we can certainly
be part of that. And thepast two the twenty fourteen and twenty seventeen
ones I think did produce very productive, constructive, helpful, and the priorities
(16:57):
that were identified in those events becamethe touchstones for our funding. And in
fact they are you know, they'republished and we I guess we would accept
a proposal from people for funding onalmost any topic, but people know that
if they are able to reference thosepriorities in their proposal, they have a
(17:18):
better chance of getting approved. Iwonder if you can talk to some of
those things that stood out for you. Well, I'll start with one that's
pretty important to me, being aneducators that the foundation provides or in some
and in a lot of cases administersthe funds for scholarships, lots and lots
(17:38):
of scholarships and young people from BowenIsland, young and old people from Bowen
Island go on to further education.Helped buy this foundation, and you know,
as well as organizations that like tochannel their money through a process so
that like the nick Nacknook even thefootball club. You know, people that
(17:59):
have educational mission use our not justour fundraising abilities, but our administrative abilities
to get that out to scholarship.So that's a it's not the biggest thing
we do dollar wise, but itis significant, and it's I think particularly
significant given the size of the island. You know, you can imagine a
community of three to five thousand peoplewouldn't necessarily haven't have any local scholarships for
(18:21):
young people. Holly, you werea grant recipient, so obviously your project
was pretty special. But now thatyou're on the board, over the years,
have you seen something that stood out? Yeah, well, you know,
of course, being the recipient ofa grant and pulling people together to
help with that, you know,it was great to have not just the
(18:45):
funding but sort of the official endorsementto do something in our community that I
thought was a good idea and otherpeople thought was a good idea. But
more recently, and it's a similarsituation. Last year we granted twenty five
thousand dollars to the West Side PlayscapesGroup, and that's on the west side
(19:07):
of the island and it's a naturallyit's all sort of like big logs and
things like that, a playground onthe west side. And the reason why
that one sort of sticks out tome is because they started a few years
ago before COVID, you know,a handful of mothers and they didn't want
to have to cross the island andcome to you know, the cove in
(19:32):
order to go to a playground,So they wanted to do something out out
by Blue Water. At the time, they applied for a grant and they
didn't have a charitable partner, theyweren't quite at the stage where they were
ready to move forward, so wehad to deny their application that year.
(19:52):
But we encouraged them because part ofthe grant application process, it's not a
long involved call formal long form essay. It's a five hundred word description and
then there's an interview process where it'sa meeting and we have a discussion.
So in that follow up meeting,the committee, the grant's committee, encouraged
(20:18):
them to continue on with the idea, made some suggestions for other charitable partners,
and encouraged them to come back thenext year, and they did and
they raised over one hundred thousand dollarsand we were a small part of that,
but that just goes to show thatby collaborating together getting some encouragement,
(20:41):
they were able to do something ontheir side of the island. And I
just think that's a really great exampleof people becoming involved and the grant sort
of being the permission to proceed withthat good idea that they had. What
a great story. Yeah, yeah, it's really exciting and it begs the
question, how do more people getinvolved to make more things like that happen.
(21:07):
There's actually two ways, you know, it's on both sides of the
spectrum. You know, we can'tfund things without donations. You know,
we do have endowment funds that createinvestment income, but we want to grow
that. So one way people canbe involved is to donate, and we
can provide a tax receipt for anydonation over twenty five dollars. That's the
(21:30):
one side of the spectrum. Theother side of the spectrum is to think
about a way that you can beinvolved in and it doesn't have to be
a whole bow and Wide kind ofinitiative. You know, we had the
Trail Society a few years ago approachus a grant for signage on the trails.
(21:51):
Think about what is a good ideafor Bowen and instead of saying why
doesn't somebody do this? Ask yourself, how can I do that? And
then what's needed and get a smallgroup together come to us. Even if
you don't know if you're ready ornot, come to us with that good
(22:11):
idea and we want to say yes, so we will help in any way
we can to get you to thatpoint where it is yes. And it
may not even be through us.Being a part of Community Foundations Canada,
we have access to and our flowthrough for the Government of Canada. This
(22:32):
past year, in twenty twenty three, there was a four hundred million dollar
Recovery Fund and Bowen is sort ofallocated about nineteen thousand of that. And
in twenty twenty there was a threehundred and fifty million emergency Emergency Community Support
Fund and we received forty thousand ofthat and you know, we flowed that
(22:53):
through to the Health Center Foundation toprovide sort of services during the pandemic.
You know, even if we can'tfund something ourselves, we can make some
suggestions. We can point people inthe right direction. And you know,
we're a community foundation. We're notbig and powerful. I describe as as
small and cute, just kind oflike Bowen, and we're neighbors and we
(23:18):
want to help our neighbors out andwe want to help our community out.
I really like small and cute ofcourse, you can also contribute by getting
involved with the board and the foundationdirectly, and also many of that I
mentioned earlier that the board is actionoriented and part of the way that it
is able to do that is thatit recruits numerous people to be members of
(23:40):
committees, even if they're not onthe board as such, And that's another
way that people can get involved byvolunteering. This has been a great place
for me to start understanding how thefoundation works. So I'm grateful for your
time. What haven't we talked aboutthat we should? Well, one of
the things Holly's already mentioned is,you know, donating to the foundation,
and almost every dollar that we giveout came from somebody's donation back in the
(24:06):
day and on an ongoing basis,while we do raise money to be invested,
and investment returns come back to theisland more than I think how they
can correct me, but about halfof what we give away cheers money we've
raised that year. So that's reallyimportant. And I think we're at a
time in our life when people mightwant to consider, you know, legacy
(24:26):
gifts, you know include the foundationand your will or things like that,
and it's something that community foundations acrossCanada do have an initiative to just raise
that awareness. People don't even thinkabout that, they don't even know how
to do it. So there issome tools available to you know that you
can do it or your financial advisorscan do it. To leave a legacy
(24:51):
to a foundation. Up to date, the boneown the Community Foundation has not
had a lot of that, butwe do have some now and we hope
we'll have more in the future.And the other thing too is that,
in addition to you know, what'stypically called, you know, a legacy
gift in somebody's will, which isreally important and you know, we do
(25:11):
rely upon that, we do haveone currently it's called the Maggie Cumming Legacy
Fund, and that was a BowenIslander who was very involved in the environment
and trails and greenways on the island. And so that is something that has
been set into motion, a fundthat is invested and provides scholarships and also
(25:37):
funding for different trails in greenway projectsthat we partner with the municipality. But
the other thing too is that inaddition to something that is left after you're
gone, we have community members whoprovide a gift. They start an endowment
fund themselves. It's called a donoradvised fund. We had one at the
end of last year. An anonymousdonor donated one hundred thousand dollars for the
(26:02):
Brian Biddlecombe Memorial Award, and thatis to provide scholarships and bursaries to our
volunteer firefighters and their immediate family membersfor either education or vocational training. So
it can be for a high schoolstudent whose parent is one of the volunteer
firefighters, or it can be forthe volunteer firefighters themselves if they have sort
(26:26):
of some mid career training or educationthat they want to go through. And
we just announced last week there's theLogan Family Healthcare Scholarship Fund, and that
was set up by our very ownphysiotherapist, Sandy Logan, in memory of
her parents. And this is afund to provide scholarships for people who are
interested in pursuing education and training inhealthcare. So it's for Bona Islanders in
(26:52):
order to have that opportunity and hopefullythey will then benefit the rest of the
community by having that additional training.So here are people who are able to
see the impact of their large donationduring their lifetime, not just after they're
gone. So that's a very importantthing that you know, people can participate
(27:14):
in if they're in that position.Terrific. I've got to tell you,
I am gobsmacked. I was curiousabout the foundation and your work and of
course Vital Conversations, but I amjust so amazed and we are so fortunate.
So I just really want to thankyou for all the work you do
in for hanging out with us well, thank you for doing what you do.
(27:37):
Having these conversations, these thoughtful conversationsis something that obviously resonates deeply with
us and appreciate you asking us tohave this chat. Richard, all the
best with Vital Conversations. Your timingis perfect. Yeah, I'm looking forward
to it. It's very exciting.So thank you both. Thank you,
Don, thank you. That's anotherepisode of the Bowen Island Podcast. We've
(27:59):
been talking with Holly Graff and RichardSmith about the Bowen Island Community Foundation.
We learned a little bit more aboutsome of the things that got us here,
some great ideas from our neighbors thatbenefit everyone on the island, and
that it's time again for Vital Conversationsto find out more how you can help
them and our community. Check themout at Bowenfoundation dot com. The Bowe
(28:22):
Island Podcast is produced on the territoriesof the Muskreham Squamation Slave with Tooth Nations.
As a settler and scholar, I'mgrateful to be able to do this
podcast. It's available almost every onceand you can hit subscribe below to make
sure you don't miss an episode.Thanks to Jason Shawf for our soundtrack,
and thank you for listening. I'mDon Schaeffer.
Welcome to the Bown Island Podcast.I'm Don Schaeffer and today we're speaking with
Holly Graff and Richard Smith about theBowen Island Community Foundation. Holly is now
the past chair of the Foundation andRichard is the Vital Conversations Committee chair.
If you don't know much about theBowen Island Foundation, it's a nonprofit organization
that aims to strengthen the Bowen Islandcommunity by supporting local projects and organizations.
(00:23):
The Foundation's current focus includes arts andculture, education, environment, health and
social services, and the Foundation raisesfunds through donations, fundraising events, and
investment income. I was looking overyour website and there's quite a roster of
familiar names and the legacy of projects. I wonder if you could tell us
a little bit about the foundation,How has it evolved over the years,
(00:46):
and what are some of the organization'smost significant achievements and challenges to date.
The Bone Island Community Foundation was startedin two thousand and one by a group
of Islanders who really wanted to finda way to give back to Bowen.
The chair at the time was Brucegrayl who's still on island and saw him
(01:07):
last Friday night. At our annualmeeting, and the idea was that,
you know, as far as charitableorganizations go, there are a lot of
really great causes and people wanted tosort of do something that would give back
to a geographic region, not justone particular cause, but the cause of
(01:27):
the community in general, So anythingrelated to our community. And I'm not
sure how familiar you are with CommunityFoundations of Canada, but it's almost two
hundred community foundations across Canada. Someof the big names are the Vancouver Foundation,
which is one of the largest,you know, Winnipeg Foundation. You
(01:51):
know, basically all the major metropolitanareas have a Community Foundation of Canada,
and then there's a lot of littleones around and we're one of the one
of the little ones and we benefitfrom Community Foundations of Canada because their mandate
is envisioning a future where everyone belongsand they're very much about not just sort
(02:17):
of funding causes, but being sortof leaders in the community as to sort
of anticipating what the future will bein those communities and how can we put
resources towards those issues, resources meaningfunding, but also volunteer time. How
can we bring causes to the attentionof the community and inspire people quite frankly,
(02:43):
to become involved. So you know, we didn't create the Bowhen Island
Community Foundation, Richard or I orany of the board members. You know,
we're just following in the template ofcommunity foundations of Canada. We have
a very close working relationship with theVancouver Foundation. They hold all of our
endowed funds, that's our investment investmentaccount and they've got over a billion dollars
(03:07):
of assets under management that they invest. So their money managers, which are
arguably some of the best in thecountry, look after the donations that people
on Bow and give, and thatinvestment money is then distributed back into the
community through grants and scholarships and bursariesevery year. So we're very fortunate to
(03:30):
have them managing our money. Wealso have a relationship with the Sea to
Sky Community Foundation, so that includesthe Westband Foundation, Whistler, Squamish,
Seashelt and I'm forgetting one. Butso we work collaboratively with those foundations because
(03:53):
we have this region in common andtherefore some of the same community issues.
So it's a very rewarding organization andas you can kind of see by past
directors and board members, and volunteers. It's sort of a great roster of
community folks who have joined and givenup their time and talents over the past
(04:16):
twenty years now. So I guessthat leads me to my next question,
which is why both of you dothis work. You've both got careers,
you're very busy. Where do youfind the time to volunteer and why do
you do it? Richard Well,I enjoy giving back to the community in
small ways and big ways. Actually, you know, my career as a
(04:38):
professor, one of the things we'rejudged on is service. Generally that's thought
of as academic service, you know, reviewing articles and stuff like that,
but really they're very understanding about communityservices service too, and I feel that
service is important just for your life. So I fitted into my life the
(05:00):
Community Foundation. You know, wehave our meetings in the evening, do
things on weekends, so it doesn'treally interfere with your kind of if you
have a Monday Friday life. Andthen of course the zoom and the pandemic
have made even more flexibility in people'slives, so I think we have the
opportunity to make spaces and at leastfor me, it's it's very rewarding.
(05:24):
That's one of the great things aboutthis community Foundation or this board. It's
very action oriented. So it's notjust a bunch of sort of meetings and
then nothing else. It's meetings decideon what to do, and then doing
it. And that's kind of funto be on a board that has action
as part of its mandate. Howabout you, Holly, Well, quite
(05:45):
honestly, what called to me wassomebody asked me to volunteer in twenty fourteen
at the first Vital Conversations event,and that was they asked me to be
a scribe at the event. Itwas sort of a last minute thing.
Somebody had dropped out and they neededsomebody and it was a Saturday morning,
and I thought, you know,I could do that for a couple of
hours and they were offering coffee andcroissants. So did that and out of
(06:11):
that conversation at Vital Conversations, oneof the priorities, well there were a
number, there were seven priorities thatcame out of that discussion that year.
A couple of them were civic prideand gathering spaces for all And at around
this time, this was, youknow, right after the National Park debate,
(06:33):
Another priority was civil discourse, andin twenty seventeen, civil discourse didn't
become a didn't come out of thatvital conversation event. Other things did.
But in twenty fourteen, when wewere talking about civic pride and gathering spaces
(06:54):
for all, one of the thingsgoing on in the community was a small
little thing, and that was thesection between the cenotaph and the ferry.
The sewer line was going in andit was going to be widened and paved
over, and I thought, youknow what the entrance to Bowen Island.
(07:15):
You know, I've lived here fortwenty years. It just sort of was
sort of a kind of a letdown, quite honestly. It was very industrial.
It was a BC faery thing withgravel and asphalt and that was it.
And I thought, it's a shameto sort of widen that asphalt and
do that. We're a rural community. Let's do something that is sort of
(07:36):
like our welcome doormat when we comehome and when we have people come to
visit. So I thought, well, let's plant some things. I'm not
a gardener. I mean, Iloved a garden, but that's not my
area of expertise. But the opportunityto get a grant from the community Foundation
(07:58):
was like, Okay, well Ican get a grant and I can ask
other people to be involved. SoI asked a landscape architect and a garden
designer and had geotech engineers also stoneworks. They volunteered their time putting the
labor and so it was a collaborativeproject. And so I obviously fell in
(08:22):
love with the Bone Island Community Foundationbecause it allowed me to sort of see
sort of a vision for something thatI thought not just could be improved,
but it should be improved. Andit was only going to be improved if
I got involved, or if Idid something I couldn't just complain about it.
(08:43):
So yeah, that's how I gotstarted. And then after that project
ended, got invited to be onthe board and just saw all the different
projects that came forward and the opportunityunity to sort of invest in the community
in a way that would continue forgenerations with our investment income, that there
(09:09):
would be the ability to provide fundsforever for projects and charitable organizations. On
Bowen, what a fun story.I was struck by your comment that vital
conversations happened during the National Park discussion, and it's coming up again as we
(09:30):
talk about kpe Archie curtis coincidental.I don't think it's coincidental because it's a
facilitated discussion and it pretty much startswith what makes Bowen special and what does
Bowen do well? So how oftendo you have vital conversations? We try
and do it every three or soyears. However, the pandemic put a
(09:54):
little wrench in that, so itis now five years since the two only
seventeen vital conversations. But this ishow we decide what to grant is from
the priorities that come out of thatvital conversations event that the community identifies as
priorities for the next handful of years. You know, where should we focus
(10:18):
our resources because we don't actually doprojects ourselves, but we hope to encourage
people to come up with you know, we call it a good idea and
apply for funding for that good idea. And the good idea can be something
small like a garden, or itcan be something like the health center,
(10:41):
which we've provided a number of differentgrants towards, you know, everything from
small set of grassroots kinds of thingsto institutions that we hope will benefit the
island for generations to come. Itsounds like a great opportunity for little self
reflection and to think about the futureand what we want to become. Richard,
is this your first time as thechair and have you been involved with
(11:05):
Vital Conversation as before? Well,certainly my first time as the chair,
but I did, I think attendthe twenty seventeen one. It's a bit
foggy in my memory. I certainlywasn't actively involved. I was just sort
of a person in the community whois at a roundtable, and so it's
I think it's kind of interesting,especially when you distinguish between our Vital Conversations
(11:28):
and the larger project which community foundationsacross Canada engage in. Something called Vital
Signs is pretty much driven by statisticsand surveys and you know, statistics,
canon, all that sort of stuff. So it's kind of a data crunching
activity and ours is distinct from that. Partly because bon On so small,
we don't really have any statistical significancein big surveys like the census, but
(11:54):
also because we wanted to have thatkind of conversation. I think It's also
really remarkable in a way that thepriorities for the foundation are not set by
the board members, you know,the eight or ten of us or whatever
sitting around and deciding on the priorities. We engage deeply with the community.
And even there it's not so mucha you know, everybody put up their
(12:15):
hand and pick something. It's aconversation and it's facilitated and it gets down
to you know, why is thisan issue or you know, why should
we what should we prioritize and why? And I think it isn't. Yeah,
sometimes it's sticking points or friction,but it's also opportunities, you know,
things like seniors, opportunities for children, opportunities, you know, living
(12:37):
spaces, all that sort of stuff. So those things come out of the
conversation and they become our priorities asa foundation for three to five years.
So I know, Vital Conversations isbeginning again. Can you talk more about
how to get involved and what willhappen. Yeah, there's two ways people
can get involved. Right now,there's U and if you go to our
website, Owenfoundation dot com, there'sa you can see Vital Conversations as a
(13:01):
menu item, and you can readabout the past ones and you can participate
in an online reflection opportunity basically justa web form that you can participate in.
And then we're going to have alive event on June three, all
day at Keith's Hill Chapel. Peoplewill be invited to participate and it's the
kind of thing where you're sitting atround tables. It's a facilitated discussion.
(13:22):
There will be scribes and table facilitatorsas well as a main facilitator. It's
not quite an all day event,but I think ten to two or something.
And so people are interested in that, they could contact us through our
web page say I'd like to bepart of that. We can't possibly accommodate
everybody on the island, but we'retrying really hard to have a diverse group
(13:43):
of people and not just the usualfolks. And I think you know,
notably, there's no politicians present wherethey have other opportunities, and it's not
a place where you know, aninterest group comes and makes a presentation and
says this is what we think isthe prior. Rather, it's a group
of citizens who come together and talkabout what all of them think is a
(14:05):
priority, we're priorities more likely,And I'd like to add that we do
try and make sure because we haveroom for sixty sort of participants and then
ten table facilitators and ten scribes,we basically try and identify fifty five percent
of that audience and invite people tomake sure that we've got as diverse a
(14:31):
representation of our island as possible.And then forty five percent is a random
draw so people can put their nameinto attend, and of course we reserve
the right to not allow, likeRichard said, you know, our elected
officials thing, because we want thisto be not only a safe space,
but we want it to be acollaborative space where we have seniors, where
(14:56):
we have youth. You know,we do have youth who've been invited and
said they're going to come. Wewant young families, we want newcomers,
we want old timers, we wantpeople from different backgrounds, we want people
who commute, we want people whowork from home on the island. And
so we've done sort of a month'slong sort of process of trying to identify
(15:20):
those folks and who would be athoughtful contributor to those discussions, because right
now We've got a major issue thatis taking up a lot of public discourse,
and it's important issue. This venueis not the place for that particular
issue. However, the issues aroundthat will come up because we are talking
(15:43):
about our community. In the pasttwo Vital Conversations, one thing that came
up both times was the environment.I'm sure that will come up this time.
That's related to the park and camping. Affordable housing was one that came
up in twenty seven. Obviously that'srelated to the discussion that is going on
right now with the park proposal.Is people are concerned about liveability and the
(16:11):
ability to afford housing in the futurehere on Bowen. So they are issues
that touch on what is the hotbutton topic right now, but it's not
related to just one particular issue.I was delighted when I learned about Vital
Conversations and thought, how timely.If we've ever been polarized, your divisive,
(16:32):
it's now. So this is agreat body of work. It's really
important. Yeah, the Community Foundation, of course can't take on the entire
burden of keeping the island happy andcohesive, but I think we can certainly
be part of that. And thepast two the twenty fourteen and twenty seventeen
ones I think did produce very productive, constructive, helpful, and the priorities
(16:57):
that were identified in those events becamethe touchstones for our funding. And in
fact they are you know, they'republished and we I guess we would accept
a proposal from people for funding onalmost any topic, but people know that
if they are able to reference thosepriorities in their proposal, they have a
(17:18):
better chance of getting approved. Iwonder if you can talk to some of
those things that stood out for you. Well, I'll start with one that's
pretty important to me, being aneducators that the foundation provides or in some
and in a lot of cases administersthe funds for scholarships, lots and lots
(17:38):
of scholarships and young people from BowenIsland, young and old people from Bowen
Island go on to further education.Helped buy this foundation, and you know,
as well as organizations that like tochannel their money through a process so
that like the nick Nacknook even thefootball club. You know, people that
(17:59):
have educational mission use our not justour fundraising abilities, but our administrative abilities
to get that out to scholarship.So that's a it's not the biggest thing
we do dollar wise, but itis significant, and it's I think particularly
significant given the size of the island. You know, you can imagine a
community of three to five thousand peoplewouldn't necessarily haven't have any local scholarships for
(18:21):
young people. Holly, you werea grant recipient, so obviously your project
was pretty special. But now thatyou're on the board, over the years,
have you seen something that stood out? Yeah, well, you know,
of course, being the recipient ofa grant and pulling people together to
help with that, you know,it was great to have not just the
(18:45):
funding but sort of the official endorsementto do something in our community that I
thought was a good idea and otherpeople thought was a good idea. But
more recently, and it's a similarsituation. Last year we granted twenty five
thousand dollars to the West Side PlayscapesGroup, and that's on the west side
(19:07):
of the island and it's a naturallyit's all sort of like big logs and
things like that, a playground onthe west side. And the reason why
that one sort of sticks out tome is because they started a few years
ago before COVID, you know,a handful of mothers and they didn't want
to have to cross the island andcome to you know, the cove in
(19:32):
order to go to a playground,So they wanted to do something out out
by Blue Water. At the time, they applied for a grant and they
didn't have a charitable partner, theyweren't quite at the stage where they were
ready to move forward, so wehad to deny their application that year.
(19:52):
But we encouraged them because part ofthe grant application process, it's not a
long involved call formal long form essay. It's a five hundred word description and
then there's an interview process where it'sa meeting and we have a discussion.
So in that follow up meeting,the committee, the grant's committee, encouraged
(20:18):
them to continue on with the idea, made some suggestions for other charitable partners,
and encouraged them to come back thenext year, and they did and
they raised over one hundred thousand dollarsand we were a small part of that,
but that just goes to show thatby collaborating together getting some encouragement,
(20:41):
they were able to do something ontheir side of the island. And I
just think that's a really great exampleof people becoming involved and the grant sort
of being the permission to proceed withthat good idea that they had. What
a great story. Yeah, yeah, it's really exciting and it begs the
question, how do more people getinvolved to make more things like that happen.
(21:07):
There's actually two ways, you know, it's on both sides of the
spectrum. You know, we can'tfund things without donations. You know,
we do have endowment funds that createinvestment income, but we want to grow
that. So one way people canbe involved is to donate, and we
can provide a tax receipt for anydonation over twenty five dollars. That's the
(21:30):
one side of the spectrum. Theother side of the spectrum is to think
about a way that you can beinvolved in and it doesn't have to be
a whole bow and Wide kind ofinitiative. You know, we had the
Trail Society a few years ago approachus a grant for signage on the trails.
(21:51):
Think about what is a good ideafor Bowen and instead of saying why
doesn't somebody do this? Ask yourself, how can I do that? And
then what's needed and get a smallgroup together come to us. Even if
you don't know if you're ready ornot, come to us with that good
(22:11):
idea and we want to say yes, so we will help in any way
we can to get you to thatpoint where it is yes. And it
may not even be through us.Being a part of Community Foundations Canada,
we have access to and our flowthrough for the Government of Canada. This
(22:32):
past year, in twenty twenty three, there was a four hundred million dollar
Recovery Fund and Bowen is sort ofallocated about nineteen thousand of that. And
in twenty twenty there was a threehundred and fifty million emergency Emergency Community Support
Fund and we received forty thousand ofthat and you know, we flowed that
(22:53):
through to the Health Center Foundation toprovide sort of services during the pandemic.
You know, even if we can'tfund something ourselves, we can make some
suggestions. We can point people inthe right direction. And you know,
we're a community foundation. We're notbig and powerful. I describe as as
small and cute, just kind oflike Bowen, and we're neighbors and we
(23:18):
want to help our neighbors out andwe want to help our community out.
I really like small and cute ofcourse, you can also contribute by getting
involved with the board and the foundationdirectly, and also many of that I
mentioned earlier that the board is actionoriented and part of the way that it
is able to do that is thatit recruits numerous people to be members of
(23:40):
committees, even if they're not onthe board as such, And that's another
way that people can get involved byvolunteering. This has been a great place
for me to start understanding how thefoundation works. So I'm grateful for your
time. What haven't we talked aboutthat we should? Well, one of
the things Holly's already mentioned is,you know, donating to the foundation,
and almost every dollar that we giveout came from somebody's donation back in the
(24:06):
day and on an ongoing basis,while we do raise money to be invested,
and investment returns come back to theisland more than I think how they
can correct me, but about halfof what we give away cheers money we've
raised that year. So that's reallyimportant. And I think we're at a
time in our life when people mightwant to consider, you know, legacy
(24:26):
gifts, you know include the foundationand your will or things like that,
and it's something that community foundations acrossCanada do have an initiative to just raise
that awareness. People don't even thinkabout that, they don't even know how
to do it. So there issome tools available to you know that you
can do it or your financial advisorscan do it. To leave a legacy
(24:51):
to a foundation. Up to date, the boneown the Community Foundation has not
had a lot of that, butwe do have some now and we hope
we'll have more in the future.And the other thing too is that,
in addition to you know, what'stypically called, you know, a legacy
gift in somebody's will, which isreally important and you know, we do
(25:11):
rely upon that, we do haveone currently it's called the Maggie Cumming Legacy
Fund, and that was a BowenIslander who was very involved in the environment
and trails and greenways on the island. And so that is something that has
been set into motion, a fundthat is invested and provides scholarships and also
(25:37):
funding for different trails in greenway projectsthat we partner with the municipality. But
the other thing too is that inaddition to something that is left after you're
gone, we have community members whoprovide a gift. They start an endowment
fund themselves. It's called a donoradvised fund. We had one at the
end of last year. An anonymousdonor donated one hundred thousand dollars for the
(26:02):
Brian Biddlecombe Memorial Award, and thatis to provide scholarships and bursaries to our
volunteer firefighters and their immediate family membersfor either education or vocational training. So
it can be for a high schoolstudent whose parent is one of the volunteer
firefighters, or it can be forthe volunteer firefighters themselves if they have sort
(26:26):
of some mid career training or educationthat they want to go through. And
we just announced last week there's theLogan Family Healthcare Scholarship Fund, and that
was set up by our very ownphysiotherapist, Sandy Logan, in memory of
her parents. And this is afund to provide scholarships for people who are
interested in pursuing education and training inhealthcare. So it's for Bona Islanders in
(26:52):
order to have that opportunity and hopefullythey will then benefit the rest of the
community by having that additional training.So here are people who are able to
see the impact of their large donationduring their lifetime, not just after they're
gone. So that's a very importantthing that you know, people can participate
(27:14):
in if they're in that position.Terrific. I've got to tell you,
I am gobsmacked. I was curiousabout the foundation and your work and of
course Vital Conversations, but I amjust so amazed and we are so fortunate.
So I just really want to thankyou for all the work you do
in for hanging out with us well, thank you for doing what you do.
(27:37):
Having these conversations, these thoughtful conversationsis something that obviously resonates deeply with
us and appreciate you asking us tohave this chat. Richard, all the
best with Vital Conversations. Your timingis perfect. Yeah, I'm looking forward
to it. It's very exciting.So thank you both. Thank you,
Don, thank you. That's anotherepisode of the Bowen Island Podcast. We've
(27:59):
been talking with Holly Graff and RichardSmith about the Bowen Island Community Foundation.
We learned a little bit more aboutsome of the things that got us here,
some great ideas from our neighbors thatbenefit everyone on the island, and
that it's time again for Vital Conversationsto find out more how you can help
them and our community. Check themout at Bowenfoundation dot com. The Bowe
(28:22):
Island Podcast is produced on the territoriesof the Muskreham Squamation Slave with Tooth Nations.
As a settler and scholar, I'mgrateful to be able to do this
podcast. It's available almost every onceand you can hit subscribe below to make
sure you don't miss an episode.Thanks to Jason Shawf for our soundtrack,
and thank you for listening. I'mDon Schaeffer.
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