To the contrary, the foundation will offer support and education to the city’s nonprofits, many of which do not have staff or resources to adequately address such issues as tax, legal and insurance requirements, board responsibilities and conduct, development, fundraising and planned giving, Tarbox said.
Workshops are planned and dates and locations to be announced. The first educational seminar will be on the topic of IRS filing and tax compliance, Tarbox said.
She also expects the foundation will be making grants within a year from the interest earned on an endowment fund-seeded with an anonymous $500,000 donation.
“They got off to a good start,” Laguna Art Museum Director Bolton Colburn said. “It has a lot of potential.”
Colburn was among the group of nonprofit representatives who attended a May 6 gathering at Aliso Creek Inn for the soft launch of the foundation. Marion Jacobs also attended the gathering, representing No Square Theatre and the Laguna Foundation of the American Assn. of University Women.
“I think if they can do what they say they will do, it will be of great benefit,” Jacobs said. “I feel positive about the plan. Now let’s see it happen.”
The foundation’s website contains a list of local nonprofits, a bulletin board where messages can be posted, a calendar of events, the history of the foundation, a list of its functions and biographies of its trustees — many, if not all, familiar faces in Laguna.
“We are all longtime Laguna residents who have been involved in many of the nonprofit organizations in town over the years,” Tarbox said.
