The Winkler Community Foundation (WCF) is the latest local foundation to benefit from the generosity of the Thomas Sill Foundation.
Thomas Sill reps have made the rounds in recent weeks to distribute funds generated from the closure of the foundation after 35 years of philanthropy. Before the holidays, Morden’s community foundation received $1,188,000 while Altona’s got $750,000.
On Monday, the WCF announced is has received $1,021,000 from the Thomas Sill Foundation to increase grants in the Winkler area.
“The Thomas Sill fund will have a significant impact on our community grant program,” said board chair Corey Hildebrand. “Essentially it will double our annual community grants which charitable organizations apply for funding from. It is an honour to have the Thomas Sill Foundation board of directors choose us.”
WCF’s annual grants are drawn from the interest of a number of endowment funds. Some of those funds are directed to specific causes—health care, sports, and specific non-profit organizations, for example—but the Community Fund is where the foundation is unrestricted in its grants for local causes and projects.
Applications for that fund each year far exceeds the available grant dollars, so the Thomas Sill Foundation gift is going to make a big difference, allowing for more recipients and potentially larger grants.
“We are grateful for the confidence they have put in us, the Winkler Community Foundation, to manage these funds and for the opportunity to distribute the annual grant dollars,” Hildebrand said.
The new fund will begin granting in 2025.
Thomas Sill was a Winnipeg accountant whose firm, Sill Streuber Fiske and Company, served clients across rural Manitoba.
In his will, Sill designated funds to create the foundation, which over the past four decades has granted out more than $46 million to charitable causes and community projects across Manitoba. Matching funds from the foundation also helped to create many of the rural community foundations operating today.
