||| FROM LINDSAY JENNINGS for ORCAS ISLAND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION |||
Next Wednesday, the OICF Board of Trustees will gather for a planning retreat to solidify our Foundation’s vision, mission, and values, and shape our strategic goals and priorities for the years ahead. We’re grateful for the input from more than 120 individuals who completed our community survey or met with us to share their perspectives and ideas.
The valuable feedback we gathered helped form the questions we’ll explore at the retreat such as:
- How can OICF best lead with clarity, trust, and alignment to community values?
- How can OICF evolve its philanthropic model to meet rising needs and funding volatility?
- What will it take to build deeper, more inclusive relationships across Orcas Island’s changing community?
- How can OICF further strengthen nonprofit capacity?
We’ll keep you posted on the outcomes of our planning efforts. In the meantime, here are a few deadlines and events to plan for after touring Orcas farms and tasting apples at the Museum this weekend:
GiveOrcas Grant Application Deadline: Tuesday, October 7
Nonprofits serving Orcas Island are encouraged to apply by Tuesday! GiveOrcas campaigns help build awareness of local organizations and raise funds to bolster the programs that make Orcas a stronger and truly thriving community. The 2025 Holiday Campaign will run from December 2 – 11, 2025. Learn more on our website.
DAF Day: Thursday, October 9
Join thousands of others across the country making Thursday October 9th the shared moment for bigger, better giving with Donor Advised Funds (DAFs). With growing funding challenges across the nonprofit community, now is a great time to make a meaningful gift from your DAF. OICF hosts donor advised funds, and can also accept gifts to any nonprofit from your DAF. If you’d like to learn more, please visit our website or contact me to learn more.
Introduction to Board Service Workshop: Wednesday, October 22
If you’re considering joining a board, or you recently joined a board and want to refresh your Board knowledge, please join us! This free workshop covers basic board responsibilities, effective practices, and how to find the right board for you to serve on. Learn more and register in advance.
**If you are reading theOrcasonian for free, thank your fellow islanders. If you would like to support theOrcasonian CLICK HERE to set your modestly-priced, voluntary subscription. Otherwise, no worries; we’re happy to share with you.**
Thank you, Orcas Community Resource Center. I’m especially interested in how we as a community can examine this:
‘What will it take to build deeper, more inclusive relationships across Orcas Island’s changing community?’ Because the Resource Center recognized the obvious change in our community and is trying to address it without losing the vision of an inclusive community. Bravo!!!
It seems offensive to some people to bring up the fact that San Juan County is number one in the entire country for income disparity, and to bring up that there is an obvious class struggle that needs rectification is a no-no. Without pointing any fingers or suggesting that ‘all’ wealthy people are ‘bad,’ I still think this has been slowly building up in the 44 years I have been here and it has driven the direction we have gone with no real checks and balances and destroying the environment and quality of life in its wake. The national political climate reflects the top down control of just about everything and everyone. So back to our LOCAL community:
Here’s an example of how this is working against the aims of the aspirations of what we COULD have done locally with still filling the requirements of the Growth Management Act, but didn’t:
The ever-expanding UGA was supposed to be a place where primarily working would live – 54% minimum of our population. (never mind what this is doing to the wetland/shoreline/forest ecosystem diversity). Has anyone done an actual study or count of how much of our population is the working class or poor? That might be instructive.
The cry for more and more affordable housing, all in the UGA, would not be so strong or insistent if actual thoughtful planning went into checking unlimited growth, yet there are no checks, balances, or enforcements and the land use regulations are gutted environmentally so as to allow unlimited growth with no caveats because… lawsuits. So what are mainly being built here for housing are for upwardly-mobile people who can afford the soaring market/demand rates, and the ever-expanding retirement community, most of which is now well-monied with assets and who like the convenience of town living. And – as we found out upon investigation, an out-of-scale mushrooming of VRBOs.
This means we must expand the UGA endlessly, gobbling up more and more of our precious environment here where it was most diverse (mixed forest riparian wetlands and the impacts on our waters) – unless we stop. Pause. Truly consider where this is heading. How are we to address this, considering that the main part of our UGA and infrastructure are on a wetland watershed (think drinking water) at sea level, with two sensitive shorelines a mile apart (one body of water is non-flushing?) We sit atop soil that liquifies in a strong earthquake, have explosive huge bulk propane tanks next to dense clustered housing, are under an airport where there have already been crashes. This is not safe or sustainable, if a catastrophic earthquake or wildfire in this area occur.
This has to come from pressuring the county to stop kowtowing to monied interests and unlimited growth. We are supposed to manage growth, not condone endless growth. The Resource Center faces this and so many more facets of what our community faces.
So, what part can the Resource Center play, besides trying and doing a great job so far of alleviating some of the pressure on the poor and middle class and the burden on the community that these issues cause? I don’t know, but I am grateful for all the help the Resource Center gives to this community, including myself. They really care! I am keenly interested in both education on the above issue and solving it.
The complexities of what we are facing are vast. The Resource Center deserves our praise and support in all ways, for taking on the many complexities that plague our small island community. These problems must be solved from the ground up – not the top down. The Community Resource center and Community Foundation are trying to carry a lot of this load.
ADDENDUM: We are not meeting the requirements of having enough affordable housing here in the UGA, hence the ‘need’ for UGA expansion, density increases on already straining lands and waters, and including 30 acres of forest in a modified, expanded UGA that is being pushed. . I forgot to add that – but it explains why so much MORE affordable housing needs to be built, along with what I previously said.
I suggest we stop this direction and address top down ownership and control, which is obvious here in the islands as well as every place else. There is no vetting of ‘investors,’ since they can hide anyway under ever shifting LLC shell games. Our nonprofits can only do so much, and we rely on investors with no checks and balances, unfortunately, we invite more ‘top-down’ ownership and control and less voice in forging our own future as a community.
No answers… just musings and wonderings, and seeing patterns. But we need to look at the whole big complex picture of what’s driving an unsustainable direction and come to some compromises. What would be alternatives to investor-run nonprofits (and now, utilities)? We need to be doing some deep dives on this and trying to come up with some more creative, collaborative solutions – and not expect nonprofits to do it all for us. But meanwhile, support them on every grassroots level we can. So they are not put into the conundrum of having to accept help from top-down entities that may not have our best interests at heart.