Friends of Lesotho

Minutes Sept. 18, 2016 (corrected)

Next Meeting: Nov 20, 2016 8:00 pm EST

Present: Scott Rosenberg (President), Bill Moore (Vice President), Kevin Caughlan (Secretary), John Hollister (Treasurer), Marisa Ernst, Kathy Jacquart, Aparna Jayaraman, Jacqueline Muhammad, Stacey McKeever, Richard Rowan, Ariel Simons, Madeline Uraneck.

Regrets: Zachary Rosen, Andrew Steele.

Open and Welcome: Scott welcomed us and opened the meeting at 8:06.

Roll Call: Kevin called Roll and a quorum was present.

Approval of Minutes: July 17 minutes were approved.

Treasurer’s Report: John sent the Treasurer’s Report earlier and it was reviewed without comment.

Committee Reports:

1. Fundraising: Stacey updated all tax documents and added Guide Star to the donations page and will be sending out the Newsletter soon including a guide to fundraising. The annual appeal will be out by Thanksgiving. Marisa wanted to know what strategies we may have for fundraising. Also, Scott will follow up on getting donations to Stacey and will get this to Zach for the Annual Report. Stacey stated that fundraising will respond to donors soon with information from John. Rich will cc Stacey about money from the Taipei American School

2. Donations: a) PCPP will automatically receive $1000 per the last 4 months of projects. (6 of them = $6000). TAP: Total of $12,500 added to TAP.

b) RYDO: We were introduced to the proposal for a matching fund for the Reach Your Own Dream Organization in Mafeteng to build and run a chicken coop for the community. After many questions and discussion, we were unable to reach consensus on this and decided to get more information and email our decision.

c) Little Angels: We heard a history of the Little Angels project. It was a project started by Rose, a PCV for a group of children orphaned by the AIDs epidemic in her village. FOL and others contributed $1500 per year for three years for the upkeep of this facility. After Rose Paradise (Little Angels), former FOL Board member passed, this was sent on to Rose’s daughter Michelle Lee <> in Hampton VA and her church. We discussed whether we should continue with this work. Richard will contact Michelle to help us decide what we should do.

3. Membership: The Membership Committee had three proposals.

a) The committee recommended that we stoop collecting membership fees beginning in 2017. This was discussed and thought that this would possibly bring more revenue, as people might donate more. This also means that we may need to push fundraising more. How will we know if we are successful in this endeavor?

b) FOL will put 5% of all donations towards operating costs.

c) FOL will have a tiered membership system with free, paid, and lifetime levels.

After a discussion, these proposals were passed and will be monitored and checked in Sept of 2017.

4. Digital Marketing: no report

5. Newsletter: The newsletter will be sent to Richard and Bill to be printed and mailed. Stacey will email copies to members with emails. Madeline needs to get a new editor by the March 2017 issue which will come out June 2017. Madeline requested that all Board members to help solicit interest for a new newsletter. Stories and bios should be sent to Ariel for Digital Media.

Close: Scott closed the meeting at 9:20.

Next Meetings: Nov 20, 2016 8:00 pm EST

Jan 15, 2017 8:00 pm EST

March 19, 2017 4:00 pm EST (Note time)