Category: Uncategorized

Today we funded our first family. We received an application from the Social Workers at Primary Childrens Hospital in Salt Lake City. The family was a young couple that had premature twins born with a host of medical problems.

As with many of these stories, there are many challenges. One of the twins suffered with infections and compromised lungs and passed away.

The second twin has been in the NICU since April of this year and has had several surgical procedures. Mom and Dad have been trying to take care of their other children, work full time, attend to the needs of their child in NICU and the crush has strained their resources to the limit.

In their application they requested that we pay a months rent and expenses for the apartment where they and their family live in Salt Lake City. We submitted the application to our process and it was quickly approved.

A check went out today to cover July’s rent and the expenses associated with the apartment (utilities, taxes and a parking fee).

This is exactly why we founded this organization. They will be able to breathe a little easier with one less worry. We are praying their baby will be able to fight her way through the challenges and bring them years of joy.

Thanks to all who donated. We will continue our mission, while continuing to raise funds for this cause.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email or phone.

We now have an agreement with a local children’s hospital. We will be working with their Social Work organization starting June 1, 2019 to identify needs and families. We have now got a process for funding that will be utilized by the organization, an application for assistance and a Grant Review Committee that will work with us to review all applications. We have a limit of $2000 per family per grant, even though the family can come back through with another application.

Our target is to donate $10,000 per month from June through December of 2019. The donations will go directly to the need identified by the family and approved by the Review Committee.

Our fund raising efforts will continue.

We have been quiet for the last few weeks while we complete our 5 year strategic plan. As an ongoing effort to make sure we maintain transparency, we have now completed this plan and it is published for all to read. You can access the plan here: Nikolas Foundation Strategic Plan 2019

We have also identified several families and will be moving forward with evaluating their needs and assessing our ability to assist.

Thank you all for your help and donations to date. We will be working to set up our first fundraiser in April time frame and will keep you updated.

I hope everyone had a very good Holiday Season and that 2019 will be off to a running start. As we continue to mature our Vision and the Foundation we believe it is imperative to have well reasoned and experienced advice. To that end we have established an Executive Advisory Board that will help us as we grow and expand our reach.

We currently have 3 executives committed and are in discussions with a 4th that we hope will come on board shortly. The quality of the executives who will be joining us is impressive and quite humbling. They have extensive experience in running large organizations in the government and private industry. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds and all bring a unique view and vision to the Foundation.

They also are quite experienced in developing strategic plans, fundraising for not for profits as well as sitting on multiple not for profit boards. We are truly looking forward to working with them as we continue to move onward with the foundation.

You can view their history and bios here:

https://www.nikolasfoundation.org/executive-advisory-board/

Welcome aboard and thanks for your commitment !

We came out of ‘stealth’ mode last weekend and have been pleasantly surprised at our fund raising. We have a goal for the first year of $50,000 and we are well on our way there. We have had some good meetings with one of the local school districts and it looks like we will be meeting with their Special Needs parents group at the next monthly meeting. We also had a great discussion about what the school system may need. It is a way we might be able to help multiple families.

Interestingly, he stated that federal and state government fund playgrounds all the time. Unfortunately, all these funded playgrounds are for regular children. He stated that his wish list is to find a way to fund ‘adaptive’ playgrounds so his special needs children and families would have a place to go. We are going to do some research to see how we might be able to help.

Stay tuned, it will only get better!

November 21, 2018 we received our Determination Letter from the IRS confirming we meet all the criteria for federal tax exemption. Even though we have had the 501 (c)(3) corporation established for over 6 weeks it is not considered official until  you file a form 1023 with the IRS. We filed that form about 3 weeks ago and received the letter this week (see picture). We can now take donations and, as an official not for profit, you can deduct those donations from your federal income taxes. We look forward to now moving forward to fulfill our mission statement “Helping special needs children and their families, up close and personal”

Watch here for updates as we begin to fund raise and identify families in need.

We will be posting our fund raising efforts and stories about the families we help.