At Rotary Charities of Traverse City, we envision communities that are adaptive and thriving for everyone. We believe our communities have the creativity, perspective, and persistence to build a society where everyone can thrive. And changemakers have been working to better our community for decades. Yet some challenges persist, and some have even gotten worse - like the housing crisis, hunger, or climate change. We’ve gotten good at helping our community beat the odds, but it’s not sustainable. It’s time to change the odds. We believe we need to work differently together to make progress. Working alongside community members from many walks of life to build community assets will help us meet the needs of those often left behind. Systems practice provides a framework to study issues from new angles, and find opportunities for change we may not have noticed before. And cultivating adaptive leadership skills to navigate changing environments will build supportive and innovative workplaces and communities. Connecting people to each other, knowledge and opportunities creates change. We are committed to using our connections and resources to support changemakers in addressing our region’s complex problems and creating community assets for all. And we are learning to work in new ways to achieve these big goals, as reflected in our guiding principles. Since our inception in the mid-1970s, Rotary Charities has distributed more than $63 million in grants to organizations and non-profits in Grand Traverse, Leelanau, Benzie, Kalkaska and Antrim counties. The public foundation was formed following the 1976 discovery of oil and natural gas reserves on property owned by the Traverse City Rotary Club. More information is available at www.rotarycharities.org