2025 Celebration Luncheon & Report to the Community
View the 2025 Annual Report to the Community here.
Transcript of the Event
Susan Fitzsimmons
We hope you were energized as we paraded in today. Help me thank the NOLA Jazz Band for kicking off our celebration with a lot of festive spirit!
Good afternoon! Welcome to the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines’ Annual Celebration Luncheon. I’m Susan Fitzsimmons and I am honored to serve as board chair of the Community Foundation. On behalf of our board of directors and our staff team, we welcome you today. Together, let’s celebrate how extraordinary our region is – the generosity of this amazing community, the nonprofit organizations that take action and inspire transformational change and the collaborative leadership that not only makes Central Iowa better together, but better forever.
If you would like to follow today’s program, on your table numbers and the screens, there is a QR code that points to a full transcript of today’s event.
In 1969, community leaders came together with the tremendous foresight and vision to create a foundation to serve the pressing needs and promising opportunities of our community. They recognized that to have a world-class region, sustainable support for organizations and community projects would enable our neighbors and communities to thrive. For over 55 years, the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines has proudly carried out this mission to improve quality of life for all by promoting charitable giving, connecting donors with causes they care about and providing leadership on important community issues – we’re simply better together.
Before we enjoy lunch and more entertainment, there are a couple of groups I’d like to recognize and thank.
First, I’d like to offer appreciation to the leaders who help guide the organization: our Board of Directors, Committee members and our Professional Advisors Council. Could you all please stand and be recognized for the critical role you play in helping further our great mission?
The next group I would like to extend a special welcome to and recognize are those that serve the public - our elected officials, dignitaries and our active-duty or retired police officers, first-responders, military and veterans. I invite you to stand and be recognized. Thank you for your service to our community, state and country.
We will now take a brief break, and invite you to enjoy your lunch and conversation, as we welcome back the NOLA Jazz Band.
[VIDEO]
Kristi Knous
I don’t know about you, but I love hearing big dreams from our community and together, maybe we really can change the world!
Good afternoon. I am Kristi Knous and I’m honored to serve as president of your Community Foundation. I’m so pleased you’ve joined us today in celebration of community.
You know I can remember a time I dreamed a big dream and standing here before you now, I can honestly say I live out that dream every day serving in this role and working in partnership with so many of you to influence positive change in the spaces and places we care about.
Speaking of dreams, you heard our board chair Susan Fitzsimmons recognize our visionary board of directors. I am equally thankful for our committed, expert staff, our dream team, as they work tirelessly to grow giving, make connections that count and lead boldly. Our talented team is here today and I’d ask any member of the Community Foundation local or affiliate dream team to stand and be recognized for your impact on our community and state.
At the Community Foundation, we help turn passion into impact. Whether that’s working with donors who so generously, strategically and lovingly follow their passions and support the causes they care about. Or partnering with our critical nonprofits, or as we like to call it the for-impact sector, so they have the tools and resources they need to take action, inspire transformational change and make a stronger community for us all; it is our honor to walk alongside you all.
Big hopes and dreams are certainly possible with the right players – because we ARE better together. It’s been our distinct honor to walk alongside one very beloved team player from Des Moines who had big dreams when she was a little girl.
[VIDEO]
We are so honored to have a front row seat to the charitable giving game and work with agencies, like the Caitlin Clark Foundation, to cultivate connections that make real and lasting impact in our communities.
We also walk alongside individuals, families and businesses – listening and learning to see how a variety of milestone moments can turn into an opportunity to grow greater giving. And we partner with financial and professional advisors as they develop tax-wise strategies for their clients to include charitable giving in their plans. We often get to witness the joy of giving!
As we celebrate these connections, we reflect on the accomplishments of 2024 and what is to come. We know we need to continue to be innovative, efficient, collaborative and future-forward in order to lead and address all our communities are facing. When a challenge or opportunity is at hand, we have a long history of rolling up our sleeves and working together to get the job done. And that commitment continues today.
Due to the generosity of donors who partner with the Community Foundation, more than $84 million was distributed from charitable giving funds held at the Community Foundation to over 2,800 nonprofit organizations. The meaningful part of that statistic is that the vast majority of that $84M is dedicated to charitable causes right here in Iowa. And more than $115 million was contributed to charitable giving funds last year to help continue to grow this good work and greater giving moving forward. In case you're curious, the giving and granting that we love to see equated to nearly 24,000 transactions behind the scenes! We have fast fingers in our finance department, that’s for sure.
Thanks to your leadership, thanks to you working to strengthen nonprofit organizations in the communities you love, and thanks to you for allowing us to be a part of your charitable giving story, we have reached a milestone moment at the Community Foundation – we now administer over $1 billion in assets. Not only is this a milestone for your Community Foundation and our state, these are charitable dollars that will be used for good, forever.
On behalf of the board and staff, a heartfelt thank you. Your exceptional generosity and caring for our community are the success of this organization. It simply would not be possible without each of you and your shared belief that supporting the causes you care about pays rich dividends for our region and our state, and we are so incredibly grateful.
In our work, and in our community, we often talk about leaving a legacy. I truly hope we each consider the legacy we want to leave every day. We couldn’t celebrate community or think about legacy without remembering our community’s biggest friend and change-maker, Jay Byers. As you know, we lost Jay just last week, and so many of us are grieving this monumental loss, but we are also remembering Jay with gratitude for the legacy he has left. He was a long-time partner with the Community Foundation on numerous visionary community betterment projects. As we think about legacy, let’s offer a moment of silence remembering the indelible legacy Jay Byers has left for our community and our region.
Legacy leavers have a long-term impact on the places they love and the places we call home. And we have found that what drives people to make a lasting difference can be the very community they live in. Rick and Laura Kozin, may have been transplants to the Greater Des Moines community, but their impact during their professional careers and their plans for the future are a gift that will keep on giving. Let’s hear from the Kozins.
[VIDEO]
Angie Dethlefs-Trettin
I remember serving with Rick Kozin on Capital Crossroads nearly a decade ago, when he was the Director of the Polk County Health Department. To him, it has been and always will be, about the work. About the health and wellbeing of this community. His passion and commitment is unmatched and thankfully, along with his wife Laura, that focus on ensuring the health of our community will be part of their lasting legacy.
Hello, I am Angie Dethlefs-Trettin, chief community impact officer at the Community Foundation. We have the unique opportunity to come alongside our nonprofit sector to celebrate their role in creating a vibrant and thriving community. Our nonprofits are impact players, providing essential programs and serving as a driving economic force for good. We have the great honor of joining with them to provide training, education and collaborative opportunities to work better together.
We are proud to have welcomed more than 1,100 nonprofit staff, board and community members to our campus in 2024. The C3 Center has been a hub of connection, collaboration and community (yes, our three C’s) and its impact continues to grow and provide for a strong nonprofit sector and the betterment of all in our community.
Today, I would like to take a moment to recognize those joining us from our region’s nonprofit organizations, or as we like to call it, the FOR-IMPACT SECTOR.
Truth be told, it has been a highly challenging year with significant unpredictability for our nonprofit organizations, affecting funding, staffing and ultimately, the communities we collectively support and love. At the Community Foundation, we believe resilience comes from collaboration, connection and community. We are committed to providing tools and resources to help organizations navigate unpredictable times. We are here to support you... as you continue to focus on the work at hand.
Our community would not be the same without individuals who care for our neighbors who are ill, provide training to help someone secure a new job or walk alongside immigrant and refugee families who call Greater Des Moines home. Our community would not be as vibrant without the creative geniuses who inspire residents and visitors alike with world-class performances or those who ensure pathways exist to explore nature and preserve it. And legacy leaving wouldn’t have the same meaning without those who prepare, care for and educate our youth, as well as those who celebrate and elevate our older neighbors. Whether you help provide food for the body, or food for the soul; shelter for a family or shelter from harm, YOU make our community strong. YOU are our region’s changemakers. YOU inspire us to keep moving forward, and we thank you. Please join me in gratitude as we recognize these critical and amazing FOR-IMPACT professionals!
All of us here today can be a force for good, a catalyst for change and a beacon of hope. Whether supporting a cause important to you or joining with others to support the Better Together Fund, we all have the power and capacity to transform our community through giving. The Better Together Fund is an opportunity for all who love Greater Des Moines to invest in our region’s most important issues, initiatives and needs for future generations. It is a savings account for our community – so that we can respond to emerging needs as they arise and continue to strengthen Greater Des Moines. In 2024, we granted more than $950 thousand dollars from the Better Together Fund alone to support critical community projects.
Activating on the grantmaking power of the Better Together Fund inspires us to leverage resources to transform issues and opportunities in our region. It cultivates innovative approaches and creative solutions. And it continues to bring us together, working across sectors, to provide a better quality of life for all.
And it's not just grant funding that helps to frame our community’s future. In fact, at the Community Foundation, we are honored to play a part in the convening of critical community conversations like those currently taking place to address homelessness in our region. Over the past few months, nonprofit housing and homelessness service providers, elected officials and for-profit leaders, individuals with lived experience and colleague funders, joined with us and Homeward, to develop The Blueprint to Address Homelessness, which will be released on May 6.
In order to move forward, we know that we must do that together. And that’s exactly what we are committed to doing. And looking out at this audience today, we have confidence that the “better together spirit” is alive and well. That’s why we are proud to call Greater Des Moines home. We are incredibly fortunate to be in a community where working together is simply who we are. And as we embrace promising opportunities and tackle pressing needs, like homelessness and workforce housing, we aim to have a planned community approach to build sustainable solutions. Home is where the heart is...and there’s certainly no place like our home.
[VIDEO]
Kristi Knous
Partnership and collaboration are what build strong communities. This was evident in 2004, when the Iowa Legislature crafted a unique structure to build philanthropy around the state by investing a portion of state gaming revenue in communities throughout Iowa without access to it. To be eligible for this funding, counties had to either become nationally accredited or affiliate with a nationally accredited community foundation.
Thus, the start of the County Endowment Fund Program also marked the start of the Community Foundation’s affiliate network. Our board understood the importance of building a philanthropic infrastructure around the state to keep wealth in Iowa, build philanthropic leadership in rural communities and offer a community foundation resource for every Iowan, not just those in our urban centers.
So, the Community Foundation Board of Directors invested in the creation of a network of county and community affiliates and today we are so proud to serve as the host foundation for 46 county and community foundations across our great state.
Through the County Endowment Fund Program, counties receive gaming revenue to both build an endowment for their forever future needs but also to make local grants in support of local needs and opportunities. Since its inception, the County Endowment Fund Program has made nearly 37,000 grants to invest $148 million in nonprofits and charitable causes in the 84 participating Iowa counties.
And equally important, these dollars catalyze philanthropy in the communities they serve. Inspiring individuals, families and businesses to establish charitable giving funds in support of their giving, and growing a structure and spirit of philanthropy across Iowa.
At the Community Foundation, we remain committed to, and inspired by, our affiliate network – fostering hyperlocal impact in the Iowa communities we all love. Those of you who are here representing our affiliate community foundations and partners across the state, would you please stand and be recognized?
Thank you! Now, please join us in celebrating this 20-year milestone moment!
[VIDEO]
As we like to say, strong communities start with strong foundations! We love celebrating our successes together, we also look forward in anticipation for the next 20, 50, 100 years growing giving for good in Iowa.
While we can’t predict the future, we can do everything in our power to craft it, cultivate it and be prepared for its challenges and its opportunities. And I’m convinced generosity, leadership, connection and collaboration will not only continue but will become even more critical to our success. It’s why we’re here – dreaming big, leaving legacies and cultivating a future that’s bright! Let’s hear some more big dreams.
[VIDEO]
As we head out to continue the good work in the communities we care about, I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to the individuals, families, businesses and organizations who work with and trust the Community Foundation as your partner in giving. Serving as the steward of your charitable giving funds and providing you with personalized solutions to meet your giving goals is an honor and privilege.
By choosing your community foundation you are supporting the important leadership work we offer in our community and state. We are incredibly grateful that you have chosen us as your local partner in making your charitable giving dreams come true.
Please note that your table floral arrangements will be repurposed to brighten the day of older adults and military veterans that receive WesleyLife’s Meals on Wheels. Additionally, any leftovers from today’s luncheon will be donated to Supply Hive, a wonderful nonprofit organization that is featured in our annual report.
You can find our staff stationed at the exits with our new annual report. In the report you can find stories of impact and generosity in action. If you are reading the stories in the report at home later and are inspired to have a conversation about how you can make a difference, please reach out to us. We are here to serve you. You’ll also see our team with cookies from female, minority-owned businesses at the exit to make your day a little sweeter. We would also encourage you to capture the spirit of today at our photo booth as you leave.
Together, as we dream big and prepare to change the world together, know that your Community Foundation will be right here, walking alongside you to make our communities Better Together.
Thank you and have a wonderful afternoon.
Stories from the Luncheon
At the Community Foundation, we help turn passion into impact. Big hopes and dreams are certainly possible with the right players – because we ARE better together. It’s been our distinct honor to walk alongside one very beloved team player from Des Moines who had big dreams when she was a little girl.
Legacy leavers have a long-term impact on the places they love and the places we call home. And we have found that what drives people to make a lasting difference can be the very community they live in. Rick and Laura Kozin, may have been transplants to the Greater Des Moines community, but their impact during their professional careers and their plans for the future are a gift that will keep on giving.
Activating on the grantmaking power of the Better Together Fund inspires us to leverage resources to transform issues and opportunities in our region. It cultivates innovative approaches and creative solutions. And it continues to bring us together, working across sectors, to provide a better quality of life for all.
Partnership and collaboration are what build strong communities. This was evident in 2004, when the Iowa Legislature crafted a unique structure to build philanthropy around the state by investing a portion of state gaming revenue in communities throughout Iowa without access to it. Through the County Endowment Fund Program, counties receive gaming revenue to both build an endowment for their forever future needs but also to make local grants in support of local needs and opportunities.
Previous Annual Luncheon Highlights: