Here for Good

Thank you all so much for being with us, and for all you do for the New Hampshire community.

I’d like to take you back tonight to 1962. Like today — an era of challenge and peril and inequity…but also of audacious optimism, and belief in what was possible. Vietnam…and the race to the moon. Jim Crow…and the civil rights movement. Silent Spring…and the birth of modern environmentalism.

And also in that year, a few people had a great idea for New Hampshire: A permanent source of philanthropic capital that would do good immediately…and for generations to come.

Our founders were three Concord attorneys who were serving as trustees of a charitable bequest from Gov. Huntley Spaulding, his wife Harriet and sister Marion Potter. The Spauldings had directed them to distribute nearly $17 million to charity. They gave some $14 million to fund scholarships, to organizations serving children and the elderly, to hospitals and mental health centers, to advance opportunity for Black people, to the arts, conservation, and more.

And with the last $2.7 million they did something remarkable. They created the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, and encouraged more generous people to pitch in: A community foundation of, by, and for the people of New Hampshire.

That seed investment has borne fruit in ways the founders could not have imagined:

From one fund we have grown to 2,200 — with scores more established every year. In all, $932 million has been distributed in grants to nonprofits and scholarships to students since 1962, including $65 million in 2023 alone.

That generosity and belief in the possible has animated and sustained our Foundation through 12 U.S. presidents and 13 New Hampshire governors, multiple economic recessions, a statewide banking crisis, an opioid epidemic, a global pandemic, housing crises and more.

Community foundations like ours are built to endure and to adapt — to act today and plan for tomorrow, to alleviate symptoms and tackle underlying causes.

We are driven by a single and profound purpose:  to make New Hampshire a community where everyone can thrive. That’s because a community that draws on the potential, strength, ingenuity and grace of every person in it is a better place to live for all.

To that end, the Foundation supports efforts to: Advance health and well-being. To protect our environment. To help make sure people have food and housing. To promote belonging and democracy and civic participation. To nurture the arts. To help people get the education they need, and achieve economic security for themselves and their families.

New Hampshire is a great place to live for many of us — but we won’t rest until that is true for all. That’s why we are focused on advancing equity, racial justice and economic security in all areas of our work: Grants and scholarships, coalitions and collaboration, public policy, and how we invest our underlying assets to align with our purpose and goals.

None of this happens without the generosity of donors and the tremendous work of community partners. You will hear two stories of that tonight. There are more in the annual report and online at nhcf.org.

More than six decades after Strukhoff, McLane and Orr’s great idea, we find ourselves in another era of complex challenges. Challenges in decades to come may be more complex yet. The Charitable Foundation is here. And always will be.

We are here with New Hampshire’s nonprofit sector, whose hard work and courage make New Hampshire better for all.

We are here with the generous people who devote resources and care toward the common good.

We are here to create partnerships to address shared challenges.

We are here when solutions demand not just unfaltering effort, but defiant optimism.

We are here with the people who are about to share their stories tonight.

We’re here for New Hampshire. And we’re here for good.