Money does not make the world go ‘round. The world turns because of the conservation of angular momentum acquired from the rotation of the solar nebula, a gaseous cloud that is believed to have formed the solar system. Our Chapter, however, does not have angular momentum and does need money. So, with this letter I would like to officially kick off an April 2026 fundraising campaign for our Chapter.
If you check out the budget on page 3 of the current newsletter, you will see that we expect to spend about $17,250 this year but can rely on only about $8,000 of recurring income from new class tuition, fundraisers, and merchandise sales. You may have heard that the State values our volunteer time at $23 per hour. This is true for purposes of their grant requests. But this does NOT translate into any money to our Chapter. We get $0 from the TMN State organization.
In past years we have made up the difference between income and expense through donations and fundraising activities like silent auctions, raffles, and seed sales. This is no longer sustainable. Donations of unrestricted funds have fallen off in the past few years, while costs have gone up. More importantly, the work involved to organize successful fundraisers has fallen disproportionately on a few people who end up having to go to basically heroic efforts to raise the needed funds. This is not fair to those people.
The Board has seriously discussed implementing membership dues to put us on a more sustainable funding pattern. Most of the other 43 Chapters have mandatory member dues between $15 – $40 per year. Given how generous our membership is with their time we are reluctant to do this. Instead we are appealing to your generosity to help us meet our fundraising goal of $8,250. We recognize that many of you not only work a ton of hours but also fund your projects out of your pocket. Please consider a gift based on your particular circumstances.
There is no right or wrong amount to give. The good news is that there is a $2,500 pool of matching funds that has been pledged by a small group of Chapter members. That means that if the Chapter membership donates $2,500 then we can claim this additional $2,500 and be well on our way to our goal.
How you can donate:
- Cash to a Board Member at a Chapter meeting in March or April.
- Check payable to Hill Country Chapter, Texas Master Naturalist either given to Board member at a Chapter meeting or mailed to the Hill Country Chapter TMN, PO Box 293972, Kerrville, Texas 78029
- Payment card – scan the Donation QR Code with the camera on your Smart Phone. The QR code appears on our website’s home page and various other pages, including this one.
Donations are tax-deductible and we will provide you with a letter acknowledging your gift.
Donors who wish to be recognized will be listed in the May edition of this newsletter by name, but not showing amounts donated. We will certainly honor any request for anonymity.
I know I don’t need to sell you on the value of our Chapter. We do so much with so little money – I can’t think of any other non-profit that can deliver the results that we do on this kind of budget. We contributed over 35,000 service hours in 2026 alone on over 150 separate projects.
We will close our fundraising campaign on April 30. Thank you for your consideration.
Alice King
HCC President