Jan. 11, 2018

A big thank you to everyone who supported NepRWA’s year-end appeal over the last few months! We had a huge rush of donations in the last 10 days of the year that allowed us to capture a last-minute challenge grant of $5,000.

The challenger offered to increase their giving for the year by $5,000 if we could find other members who would collectively increase by at least the same amount. Because the challenge was only matching increases, and because it was only announced on December 21, with just 10 days to reach the goal, we were frankly doubtful that we would be able to make it.

In spite of our doubts, NepRWA’s members weren’t going to let this opportunity slip away. All together, 88 families responded to the challenge in that short window, and increased their support for the year by $10,428, not merely meeting the goal, but more than doubling it!

A huge thank you to everyone who supported our year end appeal! The river is extremely lucky to have such dedicated and generous friends.

While we were thrilled by the response to the challenge, and we had a very strong annual appeal over all, we had also set an extremely ambitious goal for the year end appeal—to raise $37,000 more than last year so that we could hire a part-time staffer and launch our new Community Mobilization Program.

As good as the appeal was, we still fell substantially short of this bigger goal. Over the next few weeks, NepRWA’s Board and staff will evaluate whether a little more time might allow us to secure additional donations, or if we perhaps could find some complementary funding from sources other than individual donors to make up the gap. If not, we will look at options to get underway with a more modest program with the funds we did raise, by leveraging existing staff, more volunteers and perhaps interns.

Either way, we remain determined to find a way to move forward with this important work, and we will keep you posted on our progress over the next few months.

Thank you for your extraordinary generosity, and all that you are doing to turn the Neponset and it’s watershed into a resource for your family and your community!

– Ian Cooke, Executive Director