The effects of global ecological change, population growth and increased demand for the Nature Foundation at Wintergreen (TNFW) programs is driving the need to augment our existing endowment to prepare us to meet the future.  Your TNFW board has embarked on a $4 million Endowment 2025 campaign. This increased endowment will help us become a world-class environmental organization with the financial strength to thrive for decades. We hope, even in these stressful times, that we can count on the support of our dedicated members, property owners, Wintergreen resort guests and those concerned about protecting our Central Blue Ridge environment for this transformational campaign.

Memberships and generous annual gifts do support our on-going operations and these are extremely necessary.  But we must look beyond annual budget cycles to build a stronger endowment to assure TNFW’s future and its benefits for us and those who will follow us.

We are already off to a great start! You may recall our previous announcement of a generous $1 million donation. It comes with a challenge: the first half of that is an outright donation to TNFW’s Endowment 2025; the other half is a matching gift challenge. We need to raise $500,000 by October 2021 to receive that other half million. Your help is critical to enable us to meet this challenge and create a durable and sustainable TNFW.

Update

At this point, we’ve completed the first phase of our campaign by matching a generous challenge grant from a long-time supporter, raising over $1.5 million. We are now into the second phase to reach our ultimate goal of $4 million by 2025. In our second phase, we must now match a challenge grant of $250,000 by December 2022. We are almost there, with $45,000 yet to raise by the end of the year! I hope you can help us achieve this goal through a cash donation before December 2022. You can also continue to help us by:

• Talking to us about future cash gifts and planned giving Campaign.
• Introducing individuals who can provide direct donations, legacy gifts, or matching grants, and
• Connecting us to organizations and businesses interested in supporting TNFW’s mission.

To learn more about our challenge grant and stay informed about how we’re doing, please call 434-325-7452 to reach Doug Coleman or contact him via email at director@tnfw.org. Alternatively, you can reach out to Katrina Broughman, our Outreach Coordinator, by email at specialevents@tnfw.org. You are also welcome to call, John Claman, Endowment 2025 Committee Chair, at 703-628-2713.