It is clear that the multi-year grant award from the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund provided critical support in the early stages of our organizational development. The initial matching component of the grant was the lever that made our Founding Fellows program successful year after year, thus ensuring a sustainable funding stream for our operations. This program remains an integral part of our fundraising strategy; our retention rate for continued gifts from our original Founding Fellows program (2004-2006) is 70%.

Gary Withers, founding President of the Children's Institute and current Board member, best sums up how the our organization continues to reap the benefits of a sustainable funding strategy that was initiated by the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund:

"The pivotal grant from the Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund, coupled with the generosity of Duncan Campbell's seed funding, provided the bridge to move our initial concept to action and resulted in providing high quality early education to over 3,000 additional at-risk young children. The Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund matching grant created our affinity gift society - a vital fundraising mechanism that remains at the heart of our individual donor strategy."

The Children's Institute