During Tuesday evening’s Woodstock Board of Village Trustees meeting, local resident and Woodstock Community Trust trustee Emily Friedman spoke to the board about creating an endowment to protect the long-term maintenance of East End Park.
According to Friedman, there were three goals that led to the creation of East End Park and continue to guide volunteers and the trustee members moving forward — environmental restoration and enhancement of the intellectual integrity of the area, economic development, and community building.
Friedman then went on to address the current management of the park, stating, “The Woodstock Community Trust’s project — Friends of East End Park — operates as a means of raising funds to take care of and maintain the work accomplished constructing this park.” She said this is achieved through the Woodstock Community Trust’s 501 (c) (3) nonprofit status, which allows funds to be raised that are tax-deductible for those donating. Those funds are used to take care of the East End Park in conjunction with the town and village. “We are empowered to take care of the park through a memorandum of understanding with the town and village. We come to you today to talk about the idea of starting the East End Park Forever Fund.”
Friedman explained that this would be a pseudo-endowment assisted through the Vermont Community Foundation that would create a sustainable, long-term, consistent source of funding for the park. She added, a pseudo-endowment is an internal fund that an organization — such as a nonprofit or university — can set aside and invest in to function like a permanent endowment, but the principal can be spent with board approval.
Friedman said that a pseudo-endowment offers more flexibility than a standard endowment. “Rather than just getting a classic 5% yield every single year, we can decide to defer taking an annual amount and instead opt for a lump sum in ten years, which for our purposes would work out very well. Yearly maintenance can easily be managed and funded by our team and our work with the town and village, but our concern is for what could happen twenty years down the line. What if infrastructure collapses and we need to replace it? That is where this fund would come in. We anticipate having big expenses that aren’t necessarily predictable, and having an endowment that allows for flexibility would serve us very well.”
The selectboard gave its support for Friedman and the Friends of East End Park to continue pursuing this endowment.
For more on this, please see our October 16 edition of the Vermont Standard.
