ROBERT PIERCE

    • Leader & Times

Since 1996, the Western Kansas Community Foundation has been working to connect great programs and charities with donors who care.

Thursday, May 21, the foundation will host a come-and-go celebration at its office at 402 N. Main Street in Garden City. WKCF Program and Marketing Director Stacie Hahn said those who come can enjoy snacks and meet the staff, and the Garden City Area Chamber of Commerce also be on hand at 10 a.m. to do a ribbon cutting.

The celebration will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Hahn said everyone is invited to come.

“We’re also going to have a little display set up through the office of some historical information about the organization people can read through, engage with us to get to know more about us and celebrate with us,” she said.

Hahn said since its founding, WKCF has grown in many ways, and she added its start was made by impactful people in the community who saw the benefit of having money invested locally to support the services that were being provided in communities.

“They started with a fundraising campaign, and I think that initial campaign turned around, when they got done with it, $500,000,” she said. “From that, we have grown over the last 30 years to a $55 million foundation. That’s how much we manage for the donors who have left funds with us.”

At that point, Hahn said the foundation was making small grant distributions, and today, WKCF grants more than $1 million a year to organizations chosen by donors who manage funds and the foundation’s board of directors.

That board of directors, Hahn said, is made up of people from the 15 counties the foundation serves, and while many are from Garden City and Finney County, many are also from the outlying counties.

In addition to dollars, Hahn said WKCF has grown in the programs and services it provides, and started in 2017, Match Day is a great example, with the 2025 event being the first to raise more than $1 million.

Hahn said staff too has grown over the years.

“We’ve had an executive director and maybe one or two others from time to time, but at this point, we now have four full-time and one part-time staff plus someone who does some contract work for us,” she said.

Should the foundation reach its distribution goals for this year, Hahn said WKCF will have crossed the $30 million mark in grants in this, its 30th year.

“That’s a cool coincidence,” she said.

Since its beginning, Hahn said the foundation was established to serve 15 counties in Southwest Kansas, and while being recognized in its home county of Finney County, she said an effort has been made to become more recognized in those other counties for donors and non-profits.

“We have been pretty strategic about trying to cultivate board members from those other counties, as well as provide grant funding in those other counties,” she said.

In December, WKCF provides surprise grants to area non-profits, and Hahn said efforts are made to impact every county it serves with those grants.

Along with growth in counties outside of Finney County, Hahn said foundation leaders are constantly figuring out ways to impact those counties and be a better partner for communities.

At this time, Hahn said WKCF is in a good place.

“We’ve got healthy staff,” she said. “We’re always busy working on various things. The assets we manage are somewhat bound to the investment markets, but those have been pretty healthy and pretty good to us for the most part recently, so we’re in good shape for our 30th year.”

Hahn has been with the foundation since 2015, and she said even in that time, she has seen much growth.

“When I started, there were three employees,” she said. “I had become the third employee who was full time. Growth in that staff since I started, we’ve had the creation of our LLC, our land managing LLC and the acquiring of some trusts to build that aspect of our work up.”

Other aspects of growth for WKCF in that time, Hahn said, are more incoming grants and dollar requests, as well as bigger dollar requests the foundation can fulfill and the projects created from those funds.

Hahn praised the work of the foundation’s donors for making what it does possible.

“Nothing we do is simply because the foundation does it,” she said. “It’s all because the funding is provided by donors in the community who see the benefit of specific non-profit organizations and the services they’re provided, or they see the trust in the end, or they see trust in the foundation and our ability to see the needs of the community and be able to serve those needs through those non-profits who are providing the valuable services to each of our communities.”

Hahn said WKCF would not be where it is today without donors continuing to put their trust in the foundation and continuing to invest and charitable dollars through us in order to make an impact.

“Everything we’re able to do is because of the generosity of those donors and the new ones who come into the fold and the ones we’ve been partners with us for a long time continue to trust us and continue to engage with us,” she said.

As for where the money WKCF gives out in grants, Hahn said funds are provided to many non-profits throughout the area.

“We have supported the public libraries in almost all of our communities, if not all of the communities in the counties we serve,” she said. “We provide scholarships to students from various school districts across the area, the Humane Societies. We have partnered with senior centers and youth service programs.”

Hahn said this includes the Garden City-based Real Men Real Leaders program, as well as athletic programs and recreation centers looking to develop fields and facilities.

“Just about any aspect you can think of, non-profits are working in it, and we have probably partnered with them – art centers, Fowler Art Center, Garden City Arts,” she said. “There are a number of organizations that the list goes on and on we have partnered with.”

Hahn said for her, it is truly gratifying to travel through communities and see projects the foundation has provided funding for and some of the fronts of non-profit agencies WKCF has helped with in some fashion.

“It’s really gratifying to know we’re able to provide this service and provide support to these non-profits and it’s helping them build a better future for themselves and provide some sustainability and lasting for their community,” she said.

Hahn said this keeps area communities from drying up and dwindling from a lack of services for people in those communities.

“It’s gratifying to be able to know we can provide for that to try and retain those resources here so people want to live here and want to stay in this corner of the state,” she said.

Hahn said a mix of volunteers, WKCF’s founders, donors, employees and partnering non-profits have made 30 years possible.

“A lot of people have been involved in that growth and  in that sustainability for the organization to reach 30 years,” she said. “It’s taken some innovation, thinking about things differently, making changes to the way we have traditional done work in order to try and grow and being able to fulfill the needs of some of the things that have come to our attention.”

When the foundation established its LLC, Hahn said WKCF officials knew they were going to get some farm ground property, and they wanted to be able to manage the LLC and do it well. She added this and other aspects led to the foundation lasting for 30 years.

“It’s taken a lot of partnership, a lot of goodwill,” she said. “It’s taken a lot of work on all aspects of the community and everybody’s part.”

With 30 years in the book, Hahn said foundation leaders are excited for the next 30 years of WKCF.

“There’s some things on the horizons we are looking into right now we’re excited to try and develop and begin working in,” she said. “It comes with moments where you have to stop and figure some things out before you can progress, make sure you’re right sizing it for our communities, for our organization, the staff.”

Hahn said there are things foundation leaders are excited to see grow, what they can do and what Southwest Kansas communities will look like in 30 years with another $30 million or more in grants.

At 30 years, WKCF has many years to look forward to, and Hahn said the foundation is already building a strong legacy of connecting generous people to causes that impact communities and causes they care about in order for communities to be more interconnected.