By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Monica Moser recently became president and CEO of the Jackson Community Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides grants, scholarships and endowment funding to charitable causes in the area.
She succeeded Jim Sandy who stepped down the previous summer; retired judge Carlene Walz Lefere served as interim CEO for nine months.
Moser said, "Since coming to Jackson 16 years ago, I've had the opportunity to grow my leadership skills by working in local nonprofits and began to fall in love with Jackson.
"After completing my MBA, I began to see that I would like to do something in Jackson that had a broader impact on the community overall.
"The Jackson Community Foundation's mission fits my personal objectives and you can't ask for more than that."
Moser is working with the JCF board to develop a strategic plan and vision. Her biggest challenge will be to build up the foundation's funding base.
The endowment stood at $15.3 million last summer, down about $9 million from its highest point four years ago.
The foundation's Jackson Legacy scholarship program gives $600 scholarships to local high school graduates headed to Jackson Community College, Baker College or Spring Arbor University.
"I see JCF becoming stronger with a growing endowment and an increased capacity to effect real community change and growth," Moser says.
"This will become a reality with a combination of the things community foundations do best; being really good at donor services, being good stewards of the money entrusted to us with excellent grant-making policies and procedures and convening groups who wish to see Jackson become the great place we all know it to be in our hearts."
Moser previously spent nine years as executive director of disAbility Connections Inc. in Jackson, a nonprofit center for independent living.
"I came to disAbility Connections partly because I had a brother who was diagnosed with Duchene Muscular Dystrophy and understood the experience of what a family endures and how disability impacts them," she says.
"I came to know the organization after becoming a member of the Rotary Club of Jackson and joining the residential ramp building team.
"When the position of executive director became available, I went for it. It was a great fit and helped me grow in more ways than I can count."
Moser earned her bachelor's degree from Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y., and her master's degree from Spring Arbor University near Jackson.
"I knew that I needed to pursue a master's degree to be competitive in the marketplace," she says. "After being focused on the arts on the undergraduate level, I knew that I needed more knowledge about how the finances of business worked and a broader understanding of the whole picture of how the corporate world worked.
"I enjoyed every aspect of going back to school and ultimately the process to apply what I learned to my own duties leading a nonprofit to make it more successful."
Moser, who has lived on the west and east coasts of the U.S. and now resides in Grass Lake, enjoys living and working in Jackson County.
"It's a wonderful place to raise children and small enough to really know the people you work with and live with," she says. "The landscape is beautiful and the people are kind."
Moser is the immediate past president of the Rotary Club of Jackson and the current Youth Exchange Officer whose duty is to protect and guide students who come to the community from all over the world to stay for a year.
She also works with outbound students to travel abroad.
"I love it," she says. "My daughter, Emily, was a Rotary Youth Exchange student her Junior year in high school in Thailand and I'm thankful for the opportunity to take care of other family's students as they took care of mine when she was there for almost a year."
Moser and Steven Trosin tied the knot May 29 at Eyrie of the Eagle Farm and Conference Center in Grass Lake.
"Steven was born and raised in Jackson and we were lucky enough to find each other in Jackson," she says.
"Together we have five children ranging in ages from 23 to 16."
Published: Thu, Aug 4, 2011
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