2020 IGA Yearbook

Hello Friends of the IGA Foundation, I’m definitely not the first one to tell you that 2020 was a challenging year. At the outset of this pandemic it was hard to predict how it would affect fundraising. In March, the stock market was plummeting and people were rightly focused on their own wellbeing and livelihoods. It would only make sense to extrapolate and forecast much less giving. There was much discussion and planning amongst our staff and board for just that scenario. Thankfully, that wasn’t what transpired. Golf became one of the recreations that people felt comfortable doing during the pandemic. People gave to the IGA Foundation much in the same way as they have before so no drastic adjustments were necessary from a funding standpoint. We are very proud of the way golfers continued to support us. Our scholarship program remains one of the most visible things we do. Between the Herman Sani and Ann Griffel Scholarships, we dolled out $42,000 to deserving students this year. We identified seven new individuals to add to our growing list of scholars. We had to make some adjustments to the annual scholar dinner but we were able to honor the accomplishments of those seven individuals in-person. We were very thankful for that. However, the annual Benefit Tournament to raise money for the scholarship programs was forced to cancel. We developed a solid plan to hold the event in the midst of a pandemic at Cedar Rapids Country Club. But then, the derecho weather event happened, which forced the closing of CRCC for an extended period. That ultimately led to them being unable to host. While it did hurt the yearly fundraising bottom line, I am happy to report that our scholarship programs are still on very solid ground. As many of you experienced, our golf courses were much busier places this summer. That also meant a boom for our Youth on Course program, where we subsidize rounds of golf played by kids. We saw numbers jump 71% to 271 total members and rounds go up nearly 60% (just over 700 total). That is really good growth and we only hope to expand upon it in 2021. We increased our support of turfgrass in 2020. Annually, we provide a grant to the Turfgrass Extension Service (Iowa State University) supported by our office mates at the Iowa Turfgrass Institute. We now provide $4,000 of funding to pay for visits to golf courses around the state from these turf experts. They are able to answer questions and work with the local superintendents to create plans for fighting poor turf quality, and better turf is something that benefits all golfers. One area where the COVID-19 pandemic did have an impact was our annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony. This year we were honoring Beth Bader, John Benda and JuddGibb. Originally scheduled formid-April, wepushed the ceremony back to mid-September, then ultimately postponed until 2021. We feel strongly that providing the opportunity for them to celebrate with friends and family is important. Our plan is to do a “double class” induction where we honor the Class of 2020 and Class of 2021 in a single ceremony. It will mean a bit longer ceremony, but we are confident we can celebrate the accomplishments of the inductees in the fashion they all deserve. All in all, we were very happy with how 2020 turned out for the IGA Foundation. We were still able to deliver on our mission and provide very close to the same programming as in years past. Finally, I want to thank all of the donors who continue to support our mission, especially this year. You all stepped up in a big way and helped us continue to promote golf and its life-enhancing values. Mike Pape IGAF President LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT 2020ANNUAL REPORT