Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (July 16/99) - The Yellowknife Community Foundation's capital fund is near $100,000, according to the organization's annual report released this week.

Foundation vice- president Ian Legaree said the capital fund is invested in treasury bills and GICs with interest donated to various community organizations that demonstrate need.

"Typically, we put the word out that we're looking for grant applications from people to fill out and then we allocate the money," Legaree said.

"Last year we granted money to the badminton club, NWT Special Olympics, the women's centre and the Canadian Mental Health Association."

Legaree said the group tries to grant money to groups that intend to use the money for initial capital purchases instead of on-going funding.

"Typically, the money we have in our capital fund comes from donations or bequeaths," Legaree said.

"When we set up the foundation a couple years ago, we made a conscious decision not to run active fund-raising because there are a lot of organizations fund-raising in Yellowknife for several good causes."

Instead of competing against these organizations, Legaree said the foundation's funding niche would be as a place where people could donate money or bequeath money in their wills.

Often when people die, Legaree said the foundation benefits because they want to leave something to the people of Yellowknife that will keep on giving year after year.