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Acacia
Unleashing joyful philanthropy
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Exploring charitable possibilities
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Amplifying fundraising impact
Our Mission
The Acacia Foundation’s Mission is to unleash and amplify joyful philanthropy, working with donors and non-profit organizations to reach their highest impact.
What the Nonprofits We Support are Saying:
I am so grateful to The Acacia Foundation and Laura Desmond for the gift of Laura’s expertise. ‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem to cover the extent of our gratitude! Corrie and I could not believe that The Acacia Foundation would provide Laura’s expertise to the agency for free!...Laura helped us rebuild our development department and pivot our fundraising strategy after having to cancel our annual events. She continues to provide guidance on increasing and deepening relationships with corporations and individuals. Laura is now attending our Board of Director’s Development Committee and meeting with the Chair of our Development Committee to assist in educating and increasing the support of committee members in our development strategies and activities. Laura is always ready to do whatever is needed to reduce the burden on our development team…but it is often Laura’s feedback and experience that Corrie appreciates the most. Laura has re-energized our staff and board members fundraising efforts. Thanks to Laura and The Acacia Foundation, FrontLine’s fundraising activities have been strong and successful during the agency’s most challenging years.
– Susan Neth, Executive Director – FrontLine Service
We can never thank you enough, Laura, for all you do for us and the families we serve, during these most challenging times. First and foremost, we’d like to thank the Acacia Foundation for selecting Family Connections. This has been particularly needed during the pandemic and ongoing challenges posed by COVID-19. With increasing need for our services and reduced ability to conduct fundraising “as usual”, our limited fundraising resources were stretched to the limit. We were able to quickly pivot programming in new and creative ways, but this was much more difficult to respond similarly with our fundraising. In your very capable hands, we are revising, strengthening and learning to sustain our fundraising program…Thanks to your guidance and hands-on approach, both Board and staff feel hopeful and positive about our fundraising goals. More importantly, it has been and continues to be a pleasure working with you. We love the fact that you have connected so well with our Board. You are so much more than an extra pair of hands to do the work. You also provide the structures and training that will help sustain the work.
– Lissy Rand, Board President – Family Connections
I am particularly grateful for the gift of The Acacia Foundation. It is so difficult for a non-profit of our size to carve out the time and resources needed to build a successful campaign strategy and the infrastructure to execute it. Yet building this capacity is essential to our ability to scale our impact…Enter Laura and the Acacia Foundation – at a moment in time when our workforce mission is really resonating with funders – and we have done what we could not imagine. We are starting a strong Chance to Advance campaign with Laura’s expertise, time, capacity and quiet, steady council providing immeasurable support to the fundraising team. Her ongoing presence, ability to keep an eye on the next set of goals, and willingness to be “scrappy” when needed, has been an ongoing bright light in two incredibly challenging unprecedented years. As we plan for our future in a strategic planning year, knowing that the time-frame of this commitment from the Foundation is aligned with the life of the campaign is another precious gift.
– Jill Rizika, Executive Director – Towards Employment
